


One at a time

by LeighJ



Series: Fires and furs [2]
Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Danger, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Hand Jobs, Near Death, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Sex, Shameless Smut, Shower Sex, Smut, Swearing, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Violence, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 01:49:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 56,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10980816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeighJ/pseuds/LeighJ
Summary: One at a time. It's easy to think, easy to pretend that you won't let love in any more, that you'll control it. That, as gradually as you'll allow, one person will get inside you, root into your very essence. It's a lie. One at a time. Doesn't work like that. They all just kind of fall in. Warnings for swearing, violence and sexual scenes.





	1. Late night revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So for anyone who has read my one shot, "Rabbits," this is the aftermath, and life for Dani in the prison with the group, and most importantly Daryl. I have followed canon as far as Judith being born, and Lori dying. After that, we have swiftly left the shows timeline. Also, they never found any people hiding in the prison.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead, or any of its characters. I simply own my character, and this piece of writing.

"Don't stop, Glenn! _Please_ , don't stop! Oh, God!"

I groaned, pulling my hard pillow tighter over my face and squeezing my head down into the stiff pressure of my bunks bedroll. Anything to block out the sound of Maggie begging Glenn to just, " _fuck me!"._ It was late. I didn't know how I knew because it wasn't like there were any clocks around the place. Ricks watch was barely glanced at, and Glenn's pocket watch seemed to be more of a treasured possession than a working time piece. But I could feel it, deep in my gut where my body held onto the old world of timekeeping, 7 AM alarms and making sure I was on the right bus to work in the morning.

Shit, I was just so _tired._

Those pair next door weren't helping my sleep deprivation, but it seemed that the torture was finally coming to an end as Glenn gave a long, high moan. I laughed into my arm where I had buried my face because he sounded more like a woman than Maggie did. As silence finally fell, and someone hollered, "thank God!" Down the stretch of cells -probably Rick- I turned onto my back and stared at the underside of the empty top bunk. All I could think about was how much my world had shifted again in a mere three weeks.

How I had totally freaked when I first got here, even though I was positive that another day alone would have sent me sliding into crazy town. I think it was because when Daryl had first met me, half-naked and shivering so bad I couldn't even hold my damn knife if he had come at me, I had been alone. But I'd had people before that, people I cared about a long time before those months of emptiness. People I had lost. So when he had brought me back to his place, a prison no less, the sheer amount of people that grouped around us to inspect me had made my gut twist.

So many faces, and expressions, and voices. So many _people_. All those different lives and minds, eyes and grim mouths to discover again. Fresh, and whole and clean skin. No blood, no open wounds, no disfigured limbs or broken bones. I straight up panicked. It was fucking ridiculous. I had been so bold with Daryl: had gotten naked in front of him, come on to him, had _sex_ with him. A rough fuck on a cold, hard ground with a fire burning the skin on my cheekbones. So brazen with a man who I was sure was near twice my age and had been a mysterious, possibly dangerous character to come across in the middle of an apocalypse.

Him, I'd handled just fine, and yet I had freaked like a deer in headlights when I had met his family. Except Daryl had been so much easier to deal with. One person after months of rotted faces and my own ghosts. Just one man, who barely spoke and whose facial expressions didn't change, and whose words didn't give anything away about what he was thinking, or feeling. He set me at ease, and something about him made me okay. Not really safe, but okay enough to get naked to bathe, okay enough to proposition.

So when I had seen so many people in one gathering, all ranging in skin and eyes, hair, and ages, I was so overwhelmed my whole body locked up. _So many people to lose._ It was just so dangerous being around people now. You didn't even have to care about them. Just know them. Just listen to one conversation, see one expression flicker across their face and you knew it was going to hurt. It was going to hurt so much when they died. They even had a _baby_ for Christ sake. Soft, fat cheeks and big hopeful eyes. A tiny baby girl who deserved cartoons and books and fucking Disney characters painted all over her bedroom walls in a real home.

Instead, she got a prison. Bars at night and blood stains on the floors. Several people to tend to and fuss over her sure, but as I later learned, no mother. I didn't even have a name for the kind of cruel that shit was. Now here I was laughing at the sound of Glenn and Maggie's nightly fucking. How quickly your life changed now. You just had to roll with the punches, adapt to the new circumstances every day. One person at a time. That was what I needed to do. Learn one person and care for one person at a time, in careful little chunks. I sighed and curled onto my side again.

My eyes ached and my temples felt like someone was taking a drill to them, but even with the new, blissful silence, I couldn't stop thinking about my new routine, and the people involved in it. They had all been wary of me at first, and Rick had been downright ready to toss me back out on my arse. I hadn't wanted to go, despite the overwhelming amount of people I now had to live with, but I sure as shit wasn't going to beg to stay. I'd survived plenty on my own, and I didn't need any husked-out carcass of a sheriff to pass along his approval for my existence. But Daryl, in his intense way had stared at Rick between strands of his dark hair in silent protest.

_"Why?" Rick drawled, without Daryl having to say anything, his accent a twang I was still getting used to, after all this time._

_"'Cause I broughta back, thas' why," Daryl bit out._

I didn't understand what that meant. Why _her_ , perhaps? Why was she good enough to bring into the fold, and be trusted? And simply Daryl's decision and opinion of me should have been enough. I didn't know, but Rick accepted it. I thought that was pretty stupid of him and far too trusting. Daryl didn't know shit about me. Seen my bare body and learnt my name, shared an intense moment with me in a small pocket of existence. He knew me enough to do that, sure. But not enough to risk me around people he obviously cared about. I didn't plan to hurt anybody, I didn't need to.

But shit, what if I had? What if I had just killed them all and taken their supplies? Seduced him on purpose to get him to bring me back? Maybe Daryl had already considered possibilities like that and chose to dismiss them for whatever reason he deemed good enough. But it was still a risk. I couldn't decide in that moment, hanging around by the gate, if I had wanted to join a group that took risks like that. I didn't think I could survive losing that damn baby, or people that were good enough; pure enough to trust a stranger simply on another good mans word. They let me in the gates, and into their home but no one really _let me in._

Not then, and maybe not even now, three weeks later. But I was okay with that. I wasn't ready to care about anybody yet. I didn't even know if I could or if my heart would allow the room. I already held so many faces there, so many names. Despite the lack of true bonding, like the group already cultivated, I got to know everybody. I'd held Judith a couple of times, and babysat her with someone's watchful eye, namely Beth's. Carl interacted with me more than his dad, although I suspected it was his dad who made him interact, to suss me out. Hershel was just polite, not interested but not rude either.

The decision was Ricks to make, and Hershel silently made that clear to me. Glenn loved everybody, and that was okay but he seemed to love them too fiercely, a bit too much. The others, I was sure they would eventually learn to cope if they lost someone. We had all had to do it before, anyway. Hell, Rick had lost his wife not too many months back and Carl was the one who had to shoot her -his own mom- just so she didn't turn into a threat. Still, I didn't think Glenn would have been able to go on, especially if he lost Maggie, but who was I to judge? I barely knew him.

All the same, I wasn't ready to be cared for like that either, as much as I wasn't ready to care for them yet. Carol smiled nice, but I felt there was something deeper to her, a more solid foundation that she drew from, but it was something that she never seemed to express on her face. Sometimes I would catch her having quiet, intense conversations with Daryl. They appeared to be best friends, perhaps even something more, with the right push. They often looked at me, and I wondered if she was questioning him. Perhaps trying to needle out of him the reason he had brought a strange woman home.

It didn't seem that he had told anyone about us sleeping together, and the more I watched him around people he loved, the shyer he seemed. He had been intense and brief when we met, but I hadn't pegged him for shy. It made me jealous sometimes, the visible way in which he opened up to Carol. It wasn't because I had developed feelings of any kind, and it wasn't because I felt we were in any kind of competition. Mostly it was because Daryl had barely spoken to me at all since he had brought me home. I hadn't expected much of him -if anything- but I hadn't truly expected a cold shoulder either.

It was infuriating sometimes, the jealousy, because it was so misplaced in this world. There was already too much to worry about, too many things to debate day in and out, too many decisions about your life to make. Adding misplaced jealousy and relationships, complications and rivalry just weren't worth it. I still thought he was attractive, and I wouldn't have said no if he wanted to get into bed with me again, because why not? I just wouldn't chase him. I couldn't lie to even myself, couldn't say I didn't have a little crush on him. Why shouldn't I?

We had slept together, that _thing_ still meant something. That little fact, that he knew me. The way no one on the earth did now, that he would be the one to kill me. I hadn't chased him, no, but sometimes I just wanted to corner him somewhere and stick my hand down his pants, just to see what his reaction would be. The very thought left my mouth dry and my fantasies hot -sometimes too hot, too tempting- so I had integrated instead. I did whatever Rick wanted me to, just to stay. Four walls, _fences_ and a bed roll was the luxury of my life.

I wouldn't protest to being thrown out, but I didn't particularly want to, and I think that made Rick antsy, put him on edge, with how okay I was about staying or going. So, he worked me to the bone, tried to crack me open and analyse me. I took most watches, always with somebody else so that they didn't leave their safety in a stranger's hands. Smart. Rarely with Daryl, because he had his with Carol. I shared in laundry duty, 'cooking' or as close you got to it. I babysat Judith with Beth and gave Rick a break, I read comic books with Carl when his dad began to realise how ready he always was to fire his gun, and I did runs.

Which was why I was feeling so damn tired. The run we had done today made me regret my wish to work out more, that day I had met Daryl. Now that I was running with this group, I was getting the workout of my life. My back felt about ready to give and my fingers were bruised from the handle of my knife. My skin was just plain gross, forever covered in blood, sweat and gore, no matter how many times I tried to wash it all off. Which I could do now, because there were actual showers here, and lord have mercy but running hot water if you were really quick.

I'd been dying for the warm pulse again my tight shoulders when I got in, they were unbearably stiff because I'd had to beat a walker's head in with a rock too heavy for me to pick up -let alone bludgeon to death with- and now I was paying for it. But when I had gotten back with Maggie, Glenn and Rick, the two lovebirds made it quite clear they were hitting the stalls, and not just to wash up. I had avoided that shit like the plague and just headed to bed. Which was why it astounded me that they still managed to give it another go once they got into their cell.

Not because of their libidos, but because it was just damn rude to ruin my day twice over, and shit but did Maggie not care that her little sister and dad could hear her begging Glenn to ride her harder? I groaned, so agonisingly tired but just unable to shut my brain down. I threw back the thin blanket, shoved on my pants and laced up my boots. I needed to pace around, let my body be drained with exhaustion and then pass out. I tiptoed out of my cell and glanced around, hoping no one was awake. I fully planned to walk myself to the point that I couldn't walk anymore, but then I thought of Daryl, and I wondered if he would be awake.

I debated, then decided I wanted to see him. When I reached his bars, I pulled back the thin sheet hanging over them and glanced inside. He was awake, and sitting up, knees bent and thick arms hanging over them. His neck looked crooked and his head was angled low so he didn't hit it off of the top bunk. He was fully dressed and looked as exhausted as I felt.

"Hey," I whispered, by way of asking if I could come in.

"Hey," he whispered back and I took that as my cue.

He didn't move from his position, and he didn't stiffen when I sat down on his bed roll like he had been whenever I got close to him lately. I sat right on the edge anyway, his booted feet pressing into the side of my right thigh, and leant across my spread legs, cupping the left side of my face in my hand. My dark hair lent a curtain for me, much as his did for him.

"Can't sleep?" I asked.

He gave a half nod, picking at a loose thread on his already holey jeans that were sun faded and thinning. "With Glenn, an' Maggie fuckin' like that? Give me the fuckin' creeps, don't put me in no mood to sleep."

I laughed and we fell into silence. When it was clear he wasn't going to talk again, I spoke instead. "Have you been avoiding me?"

I didn't know why I was doing this now. It had been three weeks, but when you didn't follow the clock or the days, three weeks was a really long time. Months. You never knew when you would die, so even just a minute was eternal.

"Nah," he denied, still picking his jeans. "Jus' givin' the group time to get to _know_ you s'all."

I shuddered at the way he said it, despite the heat. Like he was trying to poke me with the word, remind me of the way I had desperately pressed my hips into his, my mouth to his ear and begged him to know me. I swallowed away my dry throat. "They still don't trust me."

He stopped picking his jeans but didn't look at me, and when too long passed where he had nothing to do, he began to pick at his shredded and calloused fingers instead. "They will, jus' give 'em time."

"It's okay," I reassured him. "I don't mind if I have to go. I mean, I won't like it, but it's okay."

He finally glanced at me. "S'not okay. Send people out there, might 'swell shoot 'em yaself."

"I did just fine. You didn't rescue me, Daryl," I bit out.

My gut churned, suddenly mad that he believed he had saved me. I didn't need saving, and I hadn't been. I had chosen to come with him. I didn't have to. Loneliness was never a better option, but it was still _a_ _n_ option. My choice to make. When I glared at him, ready for an argument, I found his cheeks a dim red in the dark. The fire in my belly dampened, confused. Perhaps he felt like he had done something good, bringing me back that night, and I was chucking it right back in his face, telling him he couldn't be.

"Sorry," we muttered at the same time.

I laughed beneath my breath and stretched. "I'm exhausted. I don't want to fight. I just want to know why you haven't been speaking to me."

He started picking his jeans again, and I grimaced as they come apart beneath his intent fingers. Carol was going to kill him. "S'just…"

"Yeah?" I promoted when his silence lapped too long.

He blew out a harsh breath suddenly, startling me and the hair that hung over his face, obscuring his eyes and his feelings. His mysterious ways were downright sexy, but sometimes I just wished I could see inside his brain.

"S'just that when we… I didn't think I'd ask ya to come back… didn't think 'bout _after."_ He pushed it out like it was festering.

I pressed my lips together, repressing laughter. Sometimes he seemed so sweet and shy and then he flipped out in the more abrasive red neck manner that he looked like. Not with me, because we barely interacted. But I'd seen him do it to everyone. Especially people he struggled to be around, people I could see made him itch. As if they were too clean and soft to be allowed. Like beautiful Beth and hopeful Carl, asking a thousand questions.

"I'm not asking you for anything you know," I reassured him. "I mean, I won't say _no_ to anything but I'm not really looking."

He seemed to relax a little, his shoulders less hunched and his face clearer. He nodded, that quick half bob he did all the time. I stood from his bed and groaned, popping my back like an old lady.

"I am _so_ tired," I griped. I shuffled closer and squeezed his shoulder. "Night, Daryl."

As I turned to go, his hand reached up, so big and rough, covering mine in the slim shaft of light. "Wanna stay?"

I bit my lip, remembering the, _"ya wanna come with me?"_ That brought me to the prison, and to his cell with him right now.

"You know you're a roller coaster?" I teased. "Freaking out about relationship commitment and then asking me to share your bed." I wiggled my eyebrows.

He flushed, ducked his head and let go of my hand as if I had burned him. I stumbled, tired and off balance. "Go then," he grunted. "Ain't gotta stay. Hear ya crying out in ya sleep. Thought you might not wanna sleep alone s'all."

I blushed, both at his change in attitude and the fact that he had heard me in my sleep. Which meant that the others had too. Which also meant parts of me I wasn't willing to share. Not yet, and maybe not ever. Daryl's sour expression made me sigh. He was older than me, a fully grown man and I'd dealt with only two young ones, before _._ I wasn't an expert on how to deal with them, or how to make them happy. They had been out of my comfort zone, so Daryl was off the scales. Sometimes he seemed so fierce and abrupt, ready to lay down your shit and make you deal with it.

Other times he was skittish, doubtful. Easily hurt. I had to be careful with him, but I didn't know how to be. It wasn't anything right now, me and him. But it could be. I wasn't sure if I wanted it to be, but I didn't want the door to shut on it either.

I shoved at his shoulder. "Don't make out like you want me here because you feel sorry for me, Dixon. Move over."

I was probably making it worse, but blunt humour and sarcasm were all I was good at. He moved silently, still on top of the thin blanket so I couldn't wiggle under it. He waited for me to climb in, stiff as a board and barely breathing. I clambered in, on top of the sheet. It was always so damn hot, so I wasn't too bothered about the lack of blanket, but it's absence made me feel bare and awkward.

I shifted onto my hip as Daryl put his arm behind his head, pillowing it. "You going to be weird if I lie on your chest and go to sleep?" I murmured, so, so tired that my eyes were drooping.

"Quit," he grunted, body locked up.

I stayed silent, casting around in my sluggish mind for the right thing to say. "I'm sorry," I whispered, genuinely. "I'm out of my depth too, Daryl. I don't mean to be rude, or nasty."

He was still for a second and then his weight relaxed. I shifted onto his chest and groaned. He felt _so good._ Warm and solid. Safe. I was just dozing off when he spoke again, poking into my small pocket of sleep. "I ain't promisin' nothin'. Didn't do this shit before and I ain't gonna be no good now."

I snuggled deeper into his chest. "I'm really not asking for anything. You offered. I can go."

"Nah, stay. S'alright. S'just warning ya. G'night."

"Goodnight," I breathed.

One person at a time.


	2. Not today

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note to say that: we all know Merle died around the time of the Governor, but because we've left canon and therefore the Governor story line, in my mind Merle died on that roof top in Atlanta. Rick, Daryl and the others still went back for him, but they found him dead from over exposure. Merle had already turned by that time, bringing forth the first time the group witnessed a turning without a bite, which was later confirmed for Rick at the CDC. Okay, now that I've bored you, enjoy!

I woke up alone.

Daryl, his boots and his crossbow were gone I realised -after a quick, curious and half dazed glance around his cell- so I turned onto my back, blinking groggily up at the bottom side of the top bunk and stretched. My bones cracked and my feet hurt from sleeping in my boots, but I was smiling, all the same, thinking about Daryl cuddling me to his chest when he thought that I was sleeping. Telling me that he couldn't promise me anything. I hadn't really expected anything from him, but had he expected something from me? To have mentioned it, and worried himself over it, had he been wondering about more?

I turned back onto my stomach and pressed my smiling face into his pillow, hugging it to my chest. The fabric smelt just like him but now with a little hint of me too. Enough to make my heart flutter and force my grin to stretch, hidden by his pillow. God, I hadn't woken up smiling like this in a _really_ long time. The thought of _Daryl_ wanting more with me -enough to mention that he wasn't any good at it- made my stomach flutter into all kinds of knots. He was just so… there wasn't a word that would do Daryl any justice.

Otherworldly.

Tall, dark and handsome with that rough edge and secret smile. I swallowed away my dry throat and sat up, unleashing my bound hair from its ponytail. The bobble snapped as I yanked it, and I scowled away my smile because it was the last one I owned. I ignored it, saving it for a problem for later on. The day was bright when I shuffled out of Daryl's cell, yawning. I never had enough sleep anymore, but last nights had been good. I always slept deeper when someone else was beside me, because of all those years with… I slammed the thought down, my smile struggling at the edges.

Not today.

I couldn't go there today. My mood was good, my smile was happy or was trying to be, and Beth was singing, her voice a warm echo through the blocks. Not today. Instead, I moved deeper into the makeshift kitchen we had going and sat down beside the singer herself, who stopped long enough to smile at me. No one had let me in -not yet- but I felt like Beth would be the first. I smiled back at her, accepting a warm bowl from Carol with a sleepy thank you. I didn't register what I was shovelling into my mouth because today was a hollow day. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, settling there like I hadn't eaten anything a day in my life.

It was a day where nothing was good enough because you could remember all the choices you had before. Like cold sandwiches, hot dinners and sugary cookies that burst across your tongue. Fizzy pop and different types of chocolate. Christmas and Sunday dinners from my mom… not today. My throat convulsed around my breakfast and my eyes burned as I forced the food down the sudden tightness that had taken residence there. Beth was talking to me, and I blinked rapidly, swallowing my food and throwing my spoon back into the bowl.

I glanced at her, noting her shining blonde hair and sparkly blue eyes. She reminded me of myself, from before. We looked nothing alike: my dark hair washed out her corn silk and I had eyes the colour of mud and grass, all mixed in together. But she was always smiling, Beth. Singing and humming to herself, ever hopeful and cheerful. She made the prison less gloomy, less oppressive. I had been like that, once. No one could make me frown, or ruin my day. No one could tell me no because I was just so damn optimistic about everything. I wasn't like that anymore. Not after the things I had lost.

Not today.

I tried to focus on what Beth was saying. "So, you wanna?" She asked.

I blinked and she laughed, aware that I hadn't heard a single world. "You wanna help me clear the fence?" She asked again.

I frowned, glancing around the table and spotting Rick, who was making it quite clear he was listening. Was this the test then? I kept feeling like Rick was waiting for just the right moment to spring a certain test on me, that would finally decide my fate about staying at the prison. I hadn't cleared the fence yet, so was this the test I had been waiting for? They seemed to trust me with the baby, with runs and being on watch. Clearing the fence was no less dangerous or more important than any of those things, so I couldn't see how this would be it. I tried to understand Rick's facial expression, about how important my answer was, and how I acted at the fence if I said yes, but he gave nothing away.

"Sure," I finally agreed.

I waited on Beth to finish her food before I went back to my bunk for my knife and gun. We headed out after that, down to the fence where the walkers had gathered, groaning and stinking to high heaven. Beth spent a total of what roughly felt like twenty-five minutes helping me clear the fence before she spotted Daryl coming back from a hunt and enthusiastically called him over. Apparently, she had to look after Judith right that second, and no one else could help. She took his haul for the day and ran - _giggling-_ back into the prison.

I rolled my eyes and kept taking walkers out, waiting for Daryl to take up a pole and start helping. When other walkers didn't start dropping next to mine, I turned to him with a raised eyebrow. "You can go inside and get someone else, but I'm not doing it alone."

He snorted and took up a pole. "Don't need no one else, I can do it jus' fine."

"Get to work then, lazy arse," I teased, turning back to clearing the fence.

We worked silently for a few minutes, the only sounds being the walkers groaning and the squelch of their blood as we pierced their rotted brains. "Beth wants to have a fire tonight," I mentioned, repeating what she had told me on the way down.

Daryl grunted, pulling his pole free from a tough skull and bringing back a chunk of rotted skin for his efforts. "Jus' bring more of 'em in."

"So we'll work extra hard to clear them today. Girl wants a fire, she should get a fire. Not much else for her to do, all she does is babysit, and I like hearing her sing," I admitted with a grunt.

He stopped for a minute and I stopped too, moving hair from my eyes. It was still loose because I hadn't sorted my bobble problem yet. I needed to cut it soon since it was nearly reaching my lower back, which was pretty but not practical.

"I like her singin' too," Daryl finally spoke when I was done fussing and tucking it away behind my ears.

I laughed, squinting against the hot sun. "Why are you saying that like it's a bad thing?"

He shrugged, going back to impaling walker skulls and I was pretty sure it was so he didn't have to look at me. "Girls shit, singin'. Merle woulda called me a pussy for likin' it."

"Who's Merle?" I asked before I could stop myself.

It wasn't a good thing, now, to ask whose face matched a name.

They were all ghosts.

I winced but Daryl simply grunted, "my brother."

He was extra vicious with the next walker.

I sighed and stopped again, holding the pole below the bloodied end. "I had a sister."

God, I didn't know what I was doing. I had told myself not today and here I was ripping old wounds open and letting them bleed, in front of Daryl.

 _For_ Daryl.

"She was younger than me. Just twelve when it kicked off. I was twenty-one, and I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I couldn't look after her."

Daryl was squinting behind his hair, his pole embedded in a skull he hadn't removed it from yet. He didn't ask me anything, and that was worse because my mouth ran off and tried to fill the silence that he left behind. "I was the one… who did it. There was only me."

My throat was so tight I could barely breathe. I turned my back to Daryl, closing my eyes and watching my tiny little sister behind my eyelids as she fell under the weight of three walkers. Her screams haunted my every waking moment and my sleeping ones. It was her I called out for in the night, like she had called out for me to save her. I gasped, hunched over and grabbed my knees, trying to push it all down, swallow it.

Not today.

A hand touched my shoulder and I jumped, spinning so fast my hair whipped Daryl in the face. He grunted but smoothed it away, awkwardly folding me up in a hug. My arms got crushed and my face was tight on his shoulder, but it felt good, all the same. I clenched his vest at the base of his spine, blinking the tears into the leather covering his shoulder.

"I did it fa Merle, I's the only one too," he murmured into the crown of my head.

"Did he turn?" I whispered quietly. "My sister didn't. I didn't let her."

Daryl's body shuddered, a fine tremor that slithered down from his shoulder beneath my cheek to the base of his spine, where my hand was spread. "Yeah. I wasn't there when he did. Found him. He would of done it for me."

I pressed my face tighter into his shoulder, allowing myself to bask in his heat and larger frame. "You don't seem like a hugger. Maybe only for Carol, but you snuggled me to sleep and you're hugging me now," I whispered quietly, trying to pose it as a statement rather than a question.

His chin pressed down on my head and his hands tightened around me. "I ain't," he answered simply and I grinned into his shoulder where he couldn't see.

I allowed myself the pleasure of being wrapped up in Daryl's arms for several minutes until I felt his shoulders tense up and his arms started moving around restlessly. Daryl wasn't a hugger, but he had taken me up in his arms and tried to give me comfort anyway, and now I think I was really starting to understand the kind of man that Daryl was. He was always looking out for everybody, doing everything he could to make even their off-handed requests a reality. He was always putting himself last in everything, volunteering for the overnight watches and the most dangerous runs. Even now, in this simple act of hugging he was so discomforted and yet he hadn't pushed me away because I had needed it.

"Come on, we got shit to do." I pressed the words into his vest and gathered a deep breath.

I gently pushed out of his arms with a smile, so that he didn't realise how I aware I was about his discomfort and feel guilty for it. I reached for my pole where I had dropped it, got back to work, and Daryl did the same. We carried on for over an hour in relative silence before Rick came down from the prison and told us we needed to do a quick run. Nothing too serious, but they were running low on some stuff. It was better if we tried for it today before it ran out tomorrow, so we could stay ahead. I agreed to go with Daryl on the bike if he would wait for me to get my backpack, which he nodded to.

I let Rick know the fences needed reinforcing as I was heading back in, "before they give way."

He gave a tight nod, handing a list over to Daryl. I still didn't know where his opinion of me stood, but "I 'preciate it," he'd said.

Beth caught me on the way to my cell and followed me in there. When I told her that I was going on a run with only Daryl and nobody else, which hadn't happened yet, she had grinned like the cat that got the cream.

"See? Rick wouldnta asked Daryl to go if I hadn't put him on the fence, probably would of been him and you."

I rolled my eyes and flicked her nose as I walked past her, myself and my bag ready to go. "Shut it, meddler. I'll probably be back too late to have a fire tonight, but tomorrow, okay?"

She pouted as the sun fell over her, and again I was struck with the reminder of myself, years ago. "Fine, but since you're gonna make me wait, can I ask ya to get me summin without Daryl seeing?"

I raised my eyebrow, almost intrigued. "Sure, what?"

She flushed to the roots of her hair, which was so much more apparent because of how white her skin was. "Some tampons, if you come across 'em. I bin eatin' betta and so, ya know." She shrugged, clearly embarrassed.

I took pity on her and kept my laughter in check. "Sure. I won't let Daryl see. Promise."

She knocked the wind out of me with the sudden hug she enveloped me in, and I smiled over her shoulder as I squeezed. "Make sure you come back," she whispered, so quiet it was almost like she didn't want me to hear it.

"Course I will, who else you going to ask to get you tampons?" I teased.

She pulled back with a gasp and a sharp jab to my side. "I'm serious. Promise me."

I smiled softly. "Promise."

I ducked out of the curtain fluttering over my cell bars. "See you guys in a bit," I called out to the block in general.

A chorus of goodbyes responded to me as I made my way back out into the Georgia sun. Sweat had already begun to bead on my forehead from when I cleared the fence, so I knew riding on the bike was going to make me burn up like an ant under a microscope. I'd taken off my shirt half way into clearing the fence too, so I only had my vest top to go on the run in. I hoped we got back before it cooled. Daryl was already on his bike, waiting for me and talking to Rick, who had Judith in his arms.

I joined them as Rick was finishing his 'be safe and look out for each other' speech and I nodded to him, smoothing my knuckles over Judith's cheek before I climbed on behind Daryl, wrapping my arms around his waist, ready to ride out. Rick passed Judith over to Beth who was just walking out of the prison, and got the fences with Carl to let us out, then lock them back up behind us. Then we were off. I had always thought driving on the bike would be amazing, and it kind of was. Mostly hugging Daryl's waist and pressing my hands flat on his stomach, feeling every time it rippled from my touch.

But the other parts weren't so great.

Like the fact that walkers rotted faces were centimetres from mine for a heart-stopping second before we got clear, I relaxed and then it happened all over again. My hair was also a huge fucking issue because I _still_ had no bobbles and it whipped everywhere, nearly taking mine and Daryl's eyes out. By the time we finally got to the store we going to try for, I was rattling from the vibrations of the bike and Daryl was cussing me out for nearly blinding him in the middle of the apocalypse, where he most certainly needed two eyes, which come to think of it, weren't exactly the words that he used.

More like: "you tryana fuckin' blind me, woman? I need both goddamn eyes to put squirrel in your belly every goddamn day."

So that was great, Daryl in a mood, and me: hot, sweaty and pissed off because of him being pissed off at me. Which was probably how the walker snuck up on me in the middle of clearing the store.

"Shit. Daryl!" I screamed as it took me down onto my back, its hands clinging to my shoulders.

Calling Daryl was also a really stupid idea because it was loud enough to draw any others lingering around the aisles. But he still came running for me, where I was rolling around on the floor with the walker, trying to get its head with my knife but also trying to stop its fingernails from piercing my skin, because their scratches were just as bad as their bites. One of Daryl's arrows took it down and then he hauled me to standing, patting me down and turning me in angles that stretched my muscles too tight as he inspected me for bites, scratches and any other injuries.

"I'm fine!" I hissed at him in the end, because it had been my own fault for letting my anger distract me, and I wanted him to chew me out for it.

He didn't disappoint.

"Don't go on a run with a fuckin' problem, Dani!" And I could tell he was pissed because he rarely used my name, let alone my nickname.

" _You_ can talk!" I fired back. "It was you who started on me!"

"Shut the fuck up!" He hissed, bringing the biting comment to a whisper as he tore his arrow from the skull under his boot. "You done 'nough damage as it fuckin' is."

I clenched my teeth and whipped around because even though I had wanted him to chew me out if I looked at him for another second I may have punched him. "You're such an asshole," I said over my shoulder, stalking off.

"Where you goin' now?" He called quietly, his throat vibrating with his repressed need to shout at me.

"To get stuff! If there were more walkers, they would be here by now."

I didn't look over my shoulder as I stormed away from him.

Turned out there was another walker, but it had no lower body which must have been why it hadn't come for me and Daryl when we were making noise. I didn't know where its lower half was, but I dealt with the upper and then moved on to the toiletry aisle. There weren't as many tampons left as I thought there would be, but periods didn't stop for the apocalypse, so I didn't know what I had expected. I had just squatted down to inspect the scarce choices of what was left when a creak made my heart race and my chin jerk up.

There was no one there, so I waited for a second but no walker, Daryl or human came from any aisle. I looked back at the shelves again and then decided to just take what was there. I was pretty sure it would be enough for maybe two or three months, between the four women living in the prison, including myself. I moved on from that aisle to search the meagre pickings. There wasn't much else for me to scavenge, most of the shelves depressingly bare but I managed to find two bottles of painkillers that had rolled under the stands.

As I came up from under them, pushing off my knees, I heard the creaking again. I whipped my head around once more, thinking Daryl may have been spying to see where I had rushed off to, which made my blood spike with anger because I didn't want him to see when I had promised Beth that he wouldn't. Except there was no one and nothing there again, so I chalked it up to the building itself. If it had been a walker I would have heard its eager moans, and I doubted it was a human. All the shelves were so bare you could see through most of them. There was nowhere for someone to lurk.

Glancing back at the painkillers in my hand, I grinned at the find, stuffing them in my bag. Us women would be grateful for them later, now that our periods were more regular and the pains that come with them more frequent. We had a very low stash of medicine at the prison, only enough for emergencies really, so I was pretty sure the girls had been suffering in silence. I know I had. I looped around the aisles with one hand gripping my knife and the other my bag, looking for anything else to take. I didn't find anything worthwhile until I finally happened across Daryl. He had just shoved something in his own bag and then scrunched up the list, suggesting that he was done.

"Ready to go?" I whispered as I got closer.

He glanced over at me, his face blank of emotion, which made me wonder if he was still pissed at me, more so because I had wondered off and not helped with the list. Guilt made my cheeks warm under his probing gaze, but then I reminded myself of my promise to Beth. It was only a small thing, a promise over tampons, silly really. Except promises were the only currency worth anything anymore. I'd broken promises to a lot of people I cared about, before. Things that I didn't think mattered until they were gone, like taking my cousin to a concert, not seeing my uncles more, and forgetting to paint the spare room for my grandparents.

Then the ones that were really important. Like promising my mom on her death bed that I would protect my sister with my life, and then later promising my sister that I wouldn't live without her. My reality seemed to slide for a second as I remembered, to the point that I wasn't looking into Daryl's eyes anymore. Instead, I was looking into Fae's big, scared brown ones and cuddling her to my side as she asked me if I would cope without her. I had told her no, and then I had made her go to sleep. I'd thought of that moment for months after she was gone, about how I wasn't coping, until suddenly I woke up one day and I was.

I had smiled at a bird in the trees, walking to find another camp to set up, and then I had broken down into sobs, in the middle of the road, because I was living my life without Fae, and I was coping. I blinked her face away from my vision until Daryl's face swam back into focus. He was still looking at me, so I looked away, not knowing if he had answered me. Either way, he was done because we started to make our way to the entrance, our walk becoming more of a prowl as I raised my knife and him his crossbow, ready to take on walkers and humans alike, should it come to it, to get out.

That's when I heard the creaking again.

"Did you hear that?" I whispered softly.

Daryl nodded.

We both stepped forward, and then the whole fucking ceiling caved in.


	3. White noise

White noise.

I couldn't hear anything but it, thrumming through my head and pulsing behind my eyelids. All around me, only one colour, one sensation: white. White everywhere, filling up my vision. It took me several blinks and coughs to work out that what I was seeing was dust, what I was hacking back up was the particles that were even now, still swirling like snow around me, settling on me as if they intended to bury me. I was covered in it, camouflaging my whole body so that I blended into the white room and the white noise pulsing through my bloodstream, the white dust coating my lungs.

I groaned softly as the coughing subsided, the sound just barely reaching my own ears over the constant _hmmmmm_ on a loop in my brain. As more seconds ticked on, I realised that not only was I covered in dust, not only was white noise making my head thick and sluggish, but my left leg fucking killed. I dreaded looking down, dreaded what problem I may find upon inspection, and instead stared up at the sky that was visible now the ceiling was gone. It was slowly developing into an inky black and blue, leaving only enough light to notice how white my surroundings were.

Not a good sign.

It meant that I had been lying there long enough that the pain in my leg could have been a walker bite. But then I thought back on it and logically. If there were any walkers then I probably wouldn't have woken up, _alive._ My whole body was in pain, and only my back seemed to have been spared, uncomfortable mostly because my pack was squashed beneath me and digging into my spine, but still relatively uninjured. I took a deep breath, told myself to stop procrastinating and looked down. But there was nothing to see, injury wise.

I couldn't determine what my wound was, or how bad it was, because there was a huge slab of something or other on top of me, spanning over the majority of my body except for my right arm, which was free. I pressed my free right hand to the slab desperately, feeling along the edges and trying to determine what it was. I couldn't work it out, but it didn't matter. The fact was: it was pinning me down, which was a death sentence all on its own if the walkers came, and a death sentence if they didn't. It was too heavy for me to lift with only my one free arm.

Except I wasn't on my own.

My fingers tightened on the slab and I fruitlessly tried to lift it again, but there was no one stuck underneath it with me. "Daryl?" I called as quietly as I could.

Silence.

Daryl wouldn't have left me. If he had somehow escaped and thought I was dead, he would have at least stabbed me in the head, so that I didn't turn. I knew for a fact that he wouldn't have let me turn. Which meant he hadn't left, and therefore if he wasn't next to me, trying to help me, then he was pinned beneath something too, or worse: dead. I fought back the panic bubbling inside me and the tears prickling at my eyes.

"Daryl?" I called, risking my voice a little louder.

If he wasn't there I was going to die anyway, which was a sickening thought. I was trapped real good, no wiggle room at all. Plus, even if I could get out, my left leg hurt like a son of a bitch and to add to my worries: felt wet, which meant blood. I knew walkers could smell live skin, so I imagined that they could smell blood too. The object on top of me was blocking the scent somehow, so there was that. But even if I miraculously managed to get free, the scent was going to be stronger. A big, red calling card for every walker around screaming: **EAT ME**.

Fuck.

"Daryl?" And this time my voice broke, just a little.

My head was killing too, and now that the white noise was dissipating I could feel it keenly. Come to think of it, that felt wet as well. I reached up my free right arm and touched my forehead, just a little lower than my hairline and felt my stomach plummet. Big fucking cut. A lot of blood. A scent that was open to the air. Shit. The panic started to get a little worse and I strained my upper body with the limited amount of space I had, trying to see over the top of the material squeezing the life out of me. A black boot. My stomach concaved and I jerked with a cry of pain from a twinge in my ribs.

I just barely managed to see Daryl sprawled on the floor before I had to let myself collapse. Shit, shit, shit. How was I going to get this off of me? How would I know if he was dead, or alive unless I got up to check? I glanced all around myself, looking for something loose to throw. After a few tense seconds, I found a palm-sized rock that I thought was too big and would hurt if he was alive. _If_ he was alive. _Oh, God._ I kept looking, setting it aside, distracting myself from the image of him not reacting, of just laying still, being lost to me, being dead.

After I while I found that there was no other rubble small enough, so I strained upwards again, gripping the first and only rock I had scrounged up, panting from the effort and silently apologised to Daryl as I threw it. It bounced off of his lower leg, and his leg muscle twitched. I laughed silently in giddy relief, my eyes tearing up as I let myself fall back down again. I needed him to wake up, and I prayed that he didn't have any devastating injuries because we needed to get out of here, and we needed to run.

I prayed _I_ didn't have any devastating injuries that were going to slow us down, that would halt my own abilities to run because I didn't want to die, I honestly didn't, but I wouldn't let Daryl either, and I _would_ die for him _._ I would stay behind so that he could run, and as I thought it I had a wild moment where I thought _when?_ When had I decided that I would die for Daryl Dixon? When had I let him in that deep? I shoved the thought away, bringing myself back to the problem at hand, and tried to work out what to do, tried to formulate some kind of plan before the walkers showed up, but I kept coming up blank.

Beth's words were floating in and out of my head, distracting me. " _Make sure you come back."_

_"Course I will, who else you going to ask to get you tampons?"_

_"I'm serious. Promise me."_

_"Promise."_

Promises were the only currency worth anything anymore. I had thought of that just earlier. All those promises that I didn't keep because I couldn't. But I could keep this one for Beth, I could. I just needed Daryl to wake up. I used my free hand to try and lift again but it didn't move by even an inch. My head fell back again, my eyes staring up into that inky sky. Was this how I died? Was Daryl going to wake up to me as a walker, pinned as I was? Or would he even wake up? They never left behind fresh meat. They would probably get Daryl first and then me after. I'd have to listen to them tearing him open, biting into his skin.

God, would that wake him up? Would he be brought back to a world of agony? My throat felt thick and my eyes were watering so bad they were blurring. Worse still, now that I was settling into the reality of my situation, I noticed just how much my chest really did _hurt,_ ached like someone was sitting on me. Essentially, something was, but I was starting to suspect that it was cutting off my air supply. I was starting to suspect that I was dying. I had woken with a splitting headache and white noise piercing my eardrums, but -now that I was really thinking about it- I was getting light headed too.

The world wasn't just blurry because of my tears. I was passing out, struggling to breathe and I hadn't helped one bit, hadn't done anything to preserve the last minutes of my life by moving around and trying to sit up either. I panicked for only a second before I stopped and allowed my eyes to drift shut, just as my breath started stuttering. This wasn't too bad, I thought. I still didn't want to die, but I was practical in the midst of my emotions. There were no other options for me. Daryl wasn't there to help me, no one was, and I couldn't lift it on my own.

Plus, I would rather have died from lack of oxygen -which was meant to be the most peaceful death- than have a walker chew me up. That looked agonising. I had seen it too many times to believe that it wasn't. I also wouldn't have to listen to, or see, Daryl die either, and that probably made me a coward but that was okay, because I was brave enough to admit that I wasn't strong enough for that. Minutes began to pass like that, where I sleepily mused to myself and my chest burnt with every breath that passed my lips.

It was starting to happen, I was starting to slip, and then Daryl groaned.

My eyes shot open and my blood pounded through my body, every nerve ending lighting up. "Daryl!" I shouted.

He moaned again and there was shuffling as if he was getting up. "Quiet, walkers'll hear ya then we'll have more shit to deal with."

I laughed at the sound of his bitching. "Shit like the fact that I'm about to pass out?" I groused and then laughed again because even on death's door I was still being a sarcastic little bitch.

Daryl went deathly silent though as his boots squeaked across the floor, telling me without seeing him that he had run. My heart squeezed so tight I really was going to pass out, and a tear managed to escape. He _run._ His face suddenly appeared over me, and I cringed at the swelling across his cheekbone. Something must have landed on him when he was unconscious.

"Fuck. Your head," he murmured and grunted as he began to pull at the thing holding me down.

I pushed with him, although I was so weak I didn't think I made that much of a difference. But Daryl didn't stop for even one second; didn't let himself gather his strength, even though he was hurt too. He just kept pulling, grunting and groaning with me as we worked to free my body. It felt like an eternity but luck seemed to be on our side because no walkers had shown up while we worked. Finally, finally Daryl gave one last heaving pull and it came clean off. The first free breath I took in was dizzying and it tasted _so good._

I gulped in another, and another, greedy for oxygen and only then realising just how much I never had. Daryl hoisted his bag and bow onto his back and then reached his hands down to me, and I took a hold of them both, standing on shaky legs.

"You good?" He asked.

I nodded and we started walking until my leg gave out and Daryl had to grip my waist before I fell down. "It broke?" He asked quickly, and he sounded more panicked than I had ever heard him.

My pulse spiked at his tone but I fought it down. "No, I can walk. It just really fucking hurts, and it's bleeding," I whispered, looping my arm over his neck.

"Ain't got time to check, gotta get outta here now." He bent and scooped me up in his arms like I weighed nothing.

Any other time I may have laughed or cracked a joke but nothing about my body was funny right now. My head fucking killed, my leg ached and my ribs pulsed. Breathing was beautiful and I was still taking in great big mouthfuls of oxygen, but it hurt every single time. Daryl started to pick his way over the rubble, holding me so close and tight that it hurt something awful. I didn't say anything because I was already in agony anyway, and it was the only way he could see around my body. When we got outside into the darkness, we were walker free except for two or three farther down the road.

I glanced back at the store, expecting to see a wreck but to all outside appearances, it was fully intact. Go fucking figure. Still, the muffled sounds must have been our only saving grace, because the walkers hadn't heard it and gathered around the entrance, or got in. I took another big breath, this one even better in the night air. Daryl placed me down on the bike and then climbed on behind me. The night was hot as usual, but I was shivering. Fine tremors moving from the crown of my head down to my toes. Perhaps I was going into shock, but mostly it felt like a relief trembling.

The only thing that felt truly cold was my face where the hot blood had ran down the left side of my cheek before it clotted. Daryl took my backpack from my shoulders and opened up his vest so that he could pull me tight against his front, burning my back through my vest top. He settled the backpack between my legs, where I gripped it tight. Then he hunched over me, curling my body into his and reached for the handlebars. The minute we drove off my eyes began to droop, safety like a drug to my system. We were out. Both of us. No one had gotten left behind, and no one had gotten bit.

We were going to get home, and I was going to keep my promises to Beth. I grinned at the thought, my backpack securely clamped between my thighs and carrying my grand prize of tampons and pain killers. I managed to drift off, the vibrations no longer unsettling but relaxing, sending me straight to sleep.

* * *

I was woken by movement, frantic and desperate. It popped that bubble of safety, and when I finally opened my eyes Daryl was running with me, jolting me so much I wanted to slap him for ruining a good sleep. When I come too more, I saw that Rick was running along beside him, shouting for Maggie to get Hershel, and then we were bursting into the prison. I groaned, tiredness giving way to pain and pain giving way to anger. Couldn't I just fucking sleep? But then I remembered the ceiling giving way and before I could say anything I was being deposited onto a stiff bed roll.

Finally waking up properly, I found Hershel hovering over me and from the corner of my eye, I could see Daryl in the corner, pacing. "What's going on?" I croaked, my throat desperate for water.

"Well it seems you got knocked about a bit," Hershel said softly. "Can I take a look?"

"Yeah, but I'm fi-" I cut off midway through as I started to sit up and then hissed in agony.

"Where does it hurt?" Hershel asked, hands hovering to inspect me.

"Ribs," I ground out, my teeth clenched.

"May I?" He asked, indicating to my vest top.

I nodded because I didn't give a shit but I noticed Daryl crowding closer, which blocked most of Rick and Beth's view from where they hovered in the doorway. Hershel lifted my vest top to my bra, folding it over so that he could inspect my ribs in the dim light. I tried to glance down but I had slid down onto my back again and sitting up hurt too much.

Hershel's cool fingers gently prodded and I bared my teeth so I didn't snap at him. "They're bruised up good. Probably hurt for a good while, but nothing's broken. Don't have to worry about a punctured lung. Just got to breathe normal as you can, we can't risk you picking up pneumonia."

"You for real?" I asked through a laugh.

Hershel shut me down with a levelled look. "Yes, and we have nothing to treat it."

I stifled my laughter and nodded. I understood. Pneumonia was a death sentence.

He sighed as he glanced between my leg and my forehead. "What we really need to worry about is stitching you up. Got a pretty nasty cut that I think is going to scar on your forehead, but your leg shouldn't. Maggie's gone to get what I need."

I nodded, my eyes fluttering closed again. We waited in silence for a few minutes until Rick started to ask for a more detailed explanation from Daryl. I filled in the bits that he was passed out for, leaving out the fact that I thought we were going to die, and the panic that had nearly overwhelmed me, trapped beneath that piece of ceiling. The realisation that I would allow myself to die for Daryl, and everything that meant. Maggie got back with what Hershel needed and then she assisted in wiping up the blood with rubbing alcohol that stung like a bitch, and the stitching.

I gritted my teeth through it all, feeling like a little bit of a champ for not complaining once because my pain tolerance was little more than nil. I kept trying to seek out Daryl with my eyes, to reaffirm that he was alive after those sickening seconds that I thought he may have been dead, just seeing his black boot still and unmoving, but he wouldn't look me at me, When Hershel was finally done, he said something to Daryl and then he and Maggie left. Rick told me to rest up and then left too, leaving just Beth and Daryl. He seemed to be hovering like he didn't want to go but didn't know how to ask if he could stay either.

I looked up at him and smiled. "Thank you. You saved my life, again."

He nodded and shrugged at the same time which made me grin weakly. "Do you think you could smuggle me some painkillers and water, please?" I asked quietly.

He took the hint, glancing at Beth and nodded again, passing by her without a word. She stepped in as soon as he went, bending to her knees at my bedside. "You got back," she whispered, mindful of my pounding head.

Bless her heart.

"I promised I would," I whispered back. "Got the goodies in my backpack." I nodded over to where it was on the floor.

Daryl must have chucked it there when he brought me in. Beth opened it up, glanced inside and then laughed. "Private painkillers?" She asked, rattling the bottles.

"Periods only, let Maggie and Carol know." I grinned.

She giggled and put them back in the bag, clutching it like a prize to her chest. "Thanks, Dani. You risked your life for tampons."

Daryl walked back in as we were laughing, mine weaker because it hurt so damn much. Beth bid us both goodnight, hurrying out with a grin on her face. I grinned after her retreating form, that new thread of connection unravelling from my heart and trailing out with her, attached to her now.

One person at a time.

I inched over for Daryl to sit down and he helped me swallow water after I placed the painkillers on my tongue. "Thank you."

"Scared the fuckin' life outta me today," he grumbled after a minute.

My eyes had fluttered shut but I opened them again now. "You too," I admitted. "I'm sorry, for being a bitch."

He shrugged. "S'alright. I's a dick."

My eyes closed again, the pain killers kicking in and my whole body thrumming. "Daryl?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you let me lie on your chest again? I think I'm going to be asleep any minute now," I murmured.

There was no movement for a second and then I felt him lying down, gentling lifting me and arranging me over his chest. "Mmm, thanks."

"Go sleep. Ya need it," he ordered quietly.

"Don't go then," I said quickly before I was pulled under. "Let me wake up with you."

He only hummed, which wasn't an agreement, but I fell asleep before I could challenge him over it.


	4. Rougher

The next morning, I didn't wake up alone. I glanced up at Daryl where I was lay on his chest, my stitched leg cocked up over his hip. He was still asleep, his lips parted and a light snore vibrating his chest, and me. I smiled and lay my head back down, tucking it beneath his chin and rubbing my thumb over his covered chest. His vest was off, leaving just a buttoned shirt with ragged short sleeves as if he had cut them off himself, which he probably had. Two buttons were open, leaving the tiniest slice of skin to my questing fingers. I bit my lip and slipped them beneath the opening, stroking the skin I could reach.

His breath stuttered and I stopped but didn't take my fingers out. "Mornin'," he muttered into my hair.

"Morning," I whispered back.

"Touchin' me up in my sleep?" He asked, and his voice was almost teasing.

I grinned where he couldn't see me, letting my fingers move in that small opening again. "You know you're so different when we're alone, compared to who you are with the group."

Daryl didn't respond for a moment and then his fingers began to stroke my shoulder. "That bad?"

"Course not," I denied because it wasn't. "I like it. Like I get a piece of you that no one else does."

His fingers slipped from my shoulder to my hair, combing through the strands. "Thought my hair had pissed you off?" I asked when it was clear he wasn't going to reply to my previous statement, then laughed as he got more enthusiastic.

"Nah, I like ya hair. Long, s'nice."

I bit my lip to stifle another splitting grin. "My whole body hurts and yet I'm smiling like someone just landed me with a bucket load of chocolate."

Daryl snorted. "'Cause I'm playin' with ya hair?"

"Mhmm," I agreed because we both knew that wasn't it, and before long, with Daryl's fingers sifting through my hair, I fell asleep again.

I woke up alone, the second time and there was barely any sun filtering through the sheet hanging over my bars. I frowned and sat up, my body thrumming in pain. I needed some more pills, and a shower was definitely on the cards for me tonight, Glenn, Maggie and their regular fucking spot be damned. Hobbling out, I found that everyone was eating in the makeshift kitchen. They all greeted me: Glenn gave me a side hug and Hershel gave me some more pills, advising me to eat straight away and agreeing that I could shower, so long as I didn't soak the stitches through because we didn't have many to spare.

I excused myself from Hershel and Maggie after thanking them for patching me up and went hunting for food. When I had a bowl, I glanced around for somewhere to sit and spotted Beth. Just as I was making my way over to her, Carol deliberately stepped in front of me. I stuttered to a halt in surprise, my bowl held aloft between us.

Carol smiled softly and tipped her head to the side. "Can I have a word?" She whispered.

I blinked in confusion because Carol rarely spoke to me, but nodded all the same. We moved a little way from the tables where the group were chatting amongst themselves. A quick glance around told me that no one was eavesdropping and so I looked back to Carol, indicating that she could go on with whatever she wanted to say to me.

"First of all, I want to say thank you. For bringing him home." She smiled, big and bright and I pushed the jealousy down.

"He brought me home," I corrected her. Then before I could stop myself: "is there something between you and Daryl?"

Carol laughed quietly, her hand reaching up to stroke at her throat. "Maybe in another life," and it was almost wistful, the way she said it.

I clenched my bowl tighter. "I don't understand," I admitted because if she wanted him, why didn't she try something?

Carol continued to smile. A soft, motherly one that made me wonder if she had children, before. "We've been through a lot, me and Daryl, together. The group are in littler groups, as you can tell, who they bond that bit more with. Beth, Maggie and Hershel. Glenn and Maggie. Rick, and Carl. Daryl and me… we're the outsiders."

I tried to understand, but I couldn't determine if they had shared something tragic or had simply bonded together because they were the two left over. Carol could tell I wasn't getting it because she grinned. "He's my best friend, and I think I'm his, or as close as he'll allow to a friend. There's not a word that does justice to the relationships people have anymore. They mean so much."

I nodded because I understood that. There weren't any decent words to use anymore, to describe an emotion or the way you cared for someone. Carol sighed and her fingers splayed across her throat again, her eyes drifting around the room. "I didn't understand his decision to bring you home, at first."

She looked back at me with another small smile. "But I do now. You're one of us, Danielle. The others maybe don't see it yet, but I do. Daryl does. I think maybe even Rick is getting there. You're a lot like Daryl, you know. You match."

A flush filled my cheekbones and flooded down my throat, but I grinned back at her because it was a humbling compliment. "Thank you," I whispered sincerely, meaning it.

Carol's fingers moved from her throat to cup my cheek, and the movement didn't even surprise me the way I would have thought. She was a mother hen, Carol, and I was even more positive that she'd had children, before. My heart broke for her. "You look after him, Danielle. He's so fragile, more than he looks."

I nodded again and her hand fell from my cheek. "I'm sorry to hold you up, your dinner will be getting cold."

Holding my bowl out to the side, I quickly pulled Carol in for a hug. She hugged me back just as tightly until I gasped at the pressure on my ribs. "Go on, go eat." She shoved me gently and I laughed, taking myself over to sit beside Beth.

The minute I sat down beside her, she started gushing like a school girl, not even asking what Carol had pulled me aside for. "Seen you and Daryl snugglin' this mornin'." She waggled her eyebrows and I laughed around my food.

"You like him dontchu?" Her voice was so sweet, and her accent made me grin.

I dug in with my fork, tossing it around my plate a couple of times before I began to eat it. When I had swallowed, I shrugged. "It's not as simple as that, anymore. Hard to just like someone, have a crush on them. Especially when stuff happens, like yesterday. We could die at any second. You like someone, you have to act on it before it's too late. It's a shit scary decision to make."

Beth stared for a second, her blue, blue eyes swallowing up her milk-white face. "You're right." She paused and then grinned. "Thanks."

I frowned and it pulled on the stiff cut on my forehead, making me wince. "What for?"

"You don't baby me. The others do. 'Specially Maggie, she's the worse, more than daddy." Beth frowned into her food, picking it apart with her fork.

"Can't afford to baby anyone. I never did to my sister, and she was just twelve."

My stomach clenched. Maybe I should have done that, and then I wouldn't have turned her into a terrified, nervous wreck who cried loudly and drawed the attention of every walker for miles, and eventually the ones that had killed her. I clenched my eyes shut, pushing it away.

"But you _do_ like him, dontchu?" She asked again.

I opened my eyes and grinned, my dark thoughts redirected as the man in question came in the cafeteria and looked our way. "I suppose I do."

I promised Beth I would be as quick as I could with my shower, now that the sun was setting and I had already made her wait a whole day for her fire. The others all gathered blankets to take out as I was leaving for my cell. Rick thought it was an unnecessary risk at first, something he made clear to Hershel and Glenn until Carl started complaining about how childish it was. His face took on that tight look like he was seeing his little boy get washed away in the new world and it was scaring the shit out of him. That seemed to inspire his mood change because he told Carl to get an extra blanket for Judith so that she didn't get cold.

I left with a smile, retrieving my fresh clothes and my one luxurious towel from my cell, then made my way to the showers. There seemed to be an unspoken system in the prison, where the men showered later in the evening because they tended to get in later from watches, or runs than the women. Although that didn't truly apply to Rick, or Carl because they were up at early hours tending to their crops and livestock, or Glenn, who pretty much always joined Maggie. Other than that, the women showered any time before or after, to avoid the embarrassment.

Three weeks into living with them all, I'd seen a bit of everyone's skin and they had sure seen mine, especially after last night, despite Daryl's subtle attempts to block the view. It couldn't be avoided a lot of the time. People stripped for bed and you walked in for one last word, or their clothes got torn in a walker fight. Just last week Maggie had quite literally torn the shirt from her back and the front material had slithered right off, leaving her completely topless. Glenn had nearly lost his shit because Carl was there and couldn't seem to keep his growing hormones in check, or his eyes away from Maggie's bare skin.

So, then I'd gotten an eye full of a topless Glenn all the way home since he had donated his shirt to his wife. Still, bits of skin were nothing compared to a fully nude body, so the shower rota was a unanimous decision all round. Which was why I jumped out of my fucking skin when I heard footsteps enter the bathroom. My hair was in my eyes, and I was midway through washing it with my back turned to the door, so I didn't have any time to grab my towel. The footsteps stopped and my whole body flamed, knowing someone was looking at my nude backside.

I was just about to demand who the fuck it was since they were silent for long enough to get a good eyeful when they spoke. "Fuck. Sorry. Didn't know ya was in here, thought ya went with the others."

I relaxed, recognising Daryl's voice. "Nothing you haven't seen before. Well, apart from the new stitches in my leg, and head. Oh, and my lovely bruised ribs."

I finished washing the soap from my hair and turned to face him. Thing was, he _had_ seen it before and yet turning to face him, putting myself on display for him beneath the hot shower made my body temperature ramp up several degrees. It felt different from the creek. A lot different. It had been dark, with only moonlight. Now there was dim lighting, but certainly enough to see by. Enough for him to really _see_. The air in the block seemed to have been sucked right out and he wouldn't stop looking. Not at my face or in my eyes, but all over me. My hips, and thighs. My shoulders, stomach. My breasts. Between my legs.

I swallowed, my nipples tightening beneath his intense stare. "I thought you were meant to be shy?" I finally spoke, my voice a rasp in the silent room.

"I ain't fuckin' shy," he answered aggressively and proved it by casting a heated glance at my hard nipples.

The water was still running over me, hot and insistent. Doing nothing for my nerve endings, which were on fire under his gaze. I was slick and wet, and it wasn't just the water. "Where did you run off to earlier?" I asked to distract myself from the looks he was giving me.

Like he wanted to devour me.

He swallowed and his eyes moved from my breasts to my ribs, staring at the bruises I had barely glanced at myself. "You needed ya sleep. Had to be on watch an' stuff. Rick said ya didn' have to come out for a couple days though."

I nodded, a smile tugging my lips as I squeezed the water out of my hair, preparing to finish up. "You come for a shower?" I asked, trying to appear nonchalant.

He nodded, that quick half nod and he looked about ready to burst out of his skin. "So, shower." The minute the words come out of my mouth, it sounded like a challenge, as if I was really saying: _shower with me._

I noticed his hands clench by his side, and his mouth tightened as if he was really considering it. "Nah, I'll jus' catch one later."

I shrugged like it made no difference to me, but disappointment curled hot and ugly in my stomach. "Don't leave on my account, I'm done." I shut off the shower and reached for my towel, wrapping it securely around me.

Daryl didn't move, and I bit my lip at the weighted silence. Why wouldn't he get naked in front of me? That's what it seemed to boil down to anyway because he didn't seem to mind having sex with me or pulling his trousers down. If it wasn't his lower half, was it his top half? Was there something he didn't want me to see? And who could I ask about it, if anyone?

"Is there something…" I paused as I cast around in my mind for the right word. "Wrong?"

He shook his head, but he was shredding his fingers. "I told ya, I ain't good at this shit."

I frowned. "What, you think that inviting you to a shower means you have to have sex with me?"

He glanced away and then back again, his ears going red but his gaze hot. "I would wanna."

My skin lit on fire. "Then why not? Was it… not good enough, before?"

He huffed out a laugh. "I wouldn't wanna if it was a shit fuck."

My cheeks tinged hot but I laughed, relieved just a little. "Then what's the problem?"

He bit the inside of his mouth before he answered, and when he did he went pink like it embarrassed him. "I like it… rough. Girls don't like tha' stuff, and you got hurt too. Caint be all gentle an' shit like ya need. Don't know how to."

I huffed a breath of annoyance. "It wasn't rough when we met, at the creek?"

He shrugged.

"You want it rougher?" I asked.

Daryl chewed his lip again, and I almost smirked. "I like it rough too you know, and I know how much I can take. None of this," I paused to indicate my body of stitches and bruises. "Matters."

He shook his head in denial and I sighed, taking a step towards him and gripping his face, ignoring his flinch. "I _want_ you," I stated firmly. "I've already had you. Jesus, Daryl, we nearly died yesterday, so what are you holding back for?"

He yanked his face from between my hands, taking an angry step back. "Ain't holdin' back, fuck. I ain't _shy_!" He spat it out like it was dirty, making me flinch. "Jus' don't wanna hurt ya, alrite?"

"Fuck sake, Daryl." I sighed, pushing my wet hair out of my face. "You're fucking whiplash. You meet me and fuck me within the same hour, then don't speak to me for three weeks! Then you're telling me you're 'no good' at 'this' like there even _is_ a this. _Then_ you're telling me that you want to fuck me, but won't! I don't fucking get it! Stop overthinking everything!"

His mouth tightened into a sharp pucker of anger. "I'm jus' fucked up, alrite? I jus' fuckin' am!"

He blew out the shower room in a hurricane of anger, slamming and punching everything in his wake. _Men._ I hurried to get dressed and go after him, smooth things out but I was still confused as fucking hell. What was I meant to do? What did he want from me? I didn't understand him one fucking bit. He was hot, and interesting, and mysterious, and _God_ I wanted him, but I didn't know if he was worth this headache.

Lord fucking help me.


	5. It's time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what I really need to make apparent here is my stories timeline. For Dani, it's been three years since the outbreak, but on the show, when they were in the prison I believe it had been just about a year. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, I would be genuinely thankful.
> 
> Anyway, I've had to slightly manipulate the timeline. So, basically what needs to be noted is that time was longer between events. Such as the quarry camp being over run, and the amount of time that they lived on the farm before that was over run. The most important part is that Lori and Shane continued to have their affair, even when Rick came back. I'm sorry if that doesn't sit well with you, and you really like Lori, and think that isn't appropriate to her character but I had to implement that in order for my time line to work, and Judith to be alive. Ok, n ow that I've bored you yet again, enjoy.

 

Daryl wasn't inside, as far as I could tell. I presumed he had gone out to the others, but I couldn't be sure. Daryl's knowledge of the prison was far more superior than mine. For instance: he knew which blocks to avoid, and which places had been cleared, and so he could have had hiding spots that I didn't even think to look in. He might not have even been outside with the others, either. Sometimes I saw him have an argument with someone and then storm out of the compound altogether, past the gates and into the night.

But if he was out there, then he wouldn't interact with me, I already knew that. He needed to cool down first; mull over his own thoughts before he would be willing to have a conversation with me again. I sighed, making my way to my cell to retrieve my blanket. No doubt I would pass it off to someone else because I hardly ever got cold. I was always too hot and sweaty, but I took it anyway. I'd been in Georgia for as long as I had been killing walkers, but I still hadn't gotten used to the stifling heat. I opened the doors out into the night air, the grass crisp as it crunched beneath my boots, almost sharper with every step from my left foot.

My leg hadn't been broken, but it had been cut up by something or other when that ceiling landed on me. Walking folded and tensed the cut, tugging at the stitches so that the tight shock caused my leg to give out a little each time, providing me with an almost limp as I walked closer to the fire. Beth's soft voice drifted forward to meet me before I could see even physically see anyone, wrapping me up in a blanket of warmth. My eyes sought her out and found her cradling Judith with her dad sat on her left. Hershel was talking to Rick, although it looked as if whatever he was saying was falling on deaf ears.

Rick's face was tipped towards the fence, his jaw tight like it was bothering him: the number of walkers that had ambled up. Of course, it was. Carl was on the side of Rick's not occupied by Hershel. He was talking to Glenn across the roar of the flickering flames between them, whilst Glenn had Maggie clasped between his thighs and wrapped up in a blanket. My eyes hunted for Daryl and I found him out by the fence talking to Carol, looking agitated as he paced. I scowled at the pair of them, wondering if they were talking about me, and if they were, what they were saying.

Why did Daryl always confide in her? My curiosity burned inside me to know. Was it simply because they were the last two left over? Had something happened between them, to bond them together so deeply? Would Daryl bulk if I asked him about it?

My scowl must have been quite prominent, because as I gingerly sat down beside the love birds that were Glenn and Maggie, Maggie had something to say about it: "you got it bad."

I crossed my legs to ease the pressure off of my sore ribs and smirked over at her, where she sat to my right. "Not everyone is hopelessly in love, Mags."

We weren't really on a nickname basis, me and Maggie but she grinned, all the same, allowing it.

One at a time.

"Not yet, but it's comin' for you honey," she teased.

Glenn squeezed her waist as his conversation with Carl ended and he tuned into ours. "Stop playing Cupid."

I smiled at the pair of them as she snuggled back into his body, grinning. My eyes sought out Beth through the fire as her song continued on around me. My ribs killed sitting down like this but it was worth it to do this for Beth: give her something she wanted. I knew she felt a little apart from the group, a little less important. But she worked her arse off to look after Judith -to give Rick a break- despite how the others treated her: like she was thin glass that they needed to make sure didn't crack. They babied her like she was unstable, eyeing the cut on her wrist with tight eyes and even tighter smiles.

Too young to go on runs and take watches, they said, but old enough to raise a baby, I thought bitterly. I still vividly remembered the first time I had met Beth. She had been rocking Judith on the catwalk in the cell block, and I hadn't been able to sleep. It was late, my first night in the prison and a deep darkness out the windows. I'd asked if the baby was hers -interrupting her lullaby to say it- but she had simply smiled and shaken her head.

That's when she told me about Lori.

About the farm, where they found out about Lori's pregnancy. She said there had been apparent tension between Rick, his wife, and Shane, who had been Rick's best friend. She thought something had happened between the three of them, was pretty sure there had been an affair between Lori and Shane. Except she was too timid to ask anyone about it. When I had asked her what that had to do with her looking after the baby all the time, she said she felt sorry for Judith. Rick had killed Shane, for a reason he wouldn't divulge with the group, but she suspected was because of Lori.

That she thought maybe Judith didn't have parents anymore. That maybe Rick wasn't her real daddy, and that Lori had died giving birth just about nine months ago. My heart went out for her, that night on the catwalk as she looked down at the baby in her arms and smiled. A look that said she would take what she could get because she knew in her heart that she wouldn't or couldn't have a baby herself. I'd had to leave in the end because looking at her had made my throat burn. She reminded me so much of me and Fae, all those lonely months together trying to survive.

The age gap was all wrong but I could see how fiercely Beth wanted to protect Judith and yet she didn't have the slightest clue how. I had winged every decision I ever made when it came to protecting my baby sister's life, and later on, Beth had admitted that she had winged raising Judith too. How when she said the baby was screaming because she was too hot or teething, she didn't really know herself, and when Rick asked if she was too tired, she lied and said she was fine. She didn't want them to know that every decision she ever made had her heart racing in case it was the wrong one, or how she was crying with tears of exhaustion half the time.

Beth deserved so much more admiration than she got, so much more respect than the nervous glances the group cast the scar on her wrist. I grinned again, watching the tiny blonde, illuminated beautifully by the fire like a little fairy, spreading her song and her cheer. I thought we had bonded over the tampons last night, but I had let Beth into my heart the very day that I had met her.

One at a time.

Daryl and Carol joined the group just as Beth's song ended, settling themselves into the empty spaces around the fire. "Someone should take watch, man," Daryl mumbled to Rick.

Rick nodded, but his following words didn't agree. "It's good to do this. Leave the watch. We're all out here anyhow."

Daryl grunted, ending the only conversation and plunging the group into silence. Carl picked up the dropped baton. "Well, is someone gonna tell a story or something?"

Rick butted him against his shoulder, his arms looped over his knees. "You got one, loud mouth?"

Carl shook his head with a sigh, and Maggie jumped in instead. "Why don't you tell us 'bout yourself, _Dani_?" She stressed the nickname with a smirk.

I flashed her a look that clearly said 'shut your big goddamn mouth' because I wasn't ready -or willing- to spill my life story just for her to have a little slice of entertainment. But then I looked over the fire and my eyes connected with Rick's. It was time. I could see in his face, that this was the test I had been waiting for. Time to make a decision, to know if I could really stay, long enough to be truly let in. For all the time that I had been here, I had done my share: chores, watches, runs, clearing the fence; babysitting. I had nearly died yesterday to get supplies, and that included baby formula for _his_ daughter.

But none of that would matter compared to who I was as a person. It was time. I sighed, deciding to wrap my blanket around me after all. I suddenly felt more naked than I ever had under the group's eyes. The fabric smelt like me, and Daryl, the way his pillow had yesterday morning.

I buried my face in it and stared into the fire. "What do you want to know?"

"How'd you get over here from England? It was before the turn, right?" Beth asked quietly, her voice barely ghosting across the fire, quiet so that she didn't wake Judith who was lying in her arms.

I nodded. "I was on holiday." The minute I said it I laughed so long and so loud that some of the others joined in, as if worried for my sanity. I stopped shortly after to talk, my voice dropping into a soft whisper, the feel of Daryl's gaze burning me. "When I realised what was happening, all I had at my disposal was a camera and flip flops."

"How'd you work it out?" Carl's voice from the other side of the fire.

"My mom…" I didn't have to say more.

"Fever, or…?" Glenn on my right side.

"Yeah," I confirmed, swallowing thickly.

I tried to push the image from my head, but it kept coming. My beautiful mom, white and sweaty, and so hot I could fry an egg on her forehead. My sister sobbing, and sobbing, and _sobbing._ First, when she thought that mom had survived, and after when she tried to bite me. The worst was when I had to shoot her in the head. Except I hadn't known then, that the head was what I needed to target. So I had shot her chest first, over and over, and over again.

It was _awful._

"Was there anyone else with you?" Carl asked and I glanced up again.

It seemed worse, looking at him. I knew he had been young when it kicked off, maybe the same age as my sister, maybe younger. Perhaps she would have been the same age now. Alive, and whole if I had been strong enough to teach her to shoot, and fight. Not cry, and shake. If I had been like Rick and his wife.

If I had been like I was now, and not then.

I glanced back into the fire again, praying the dry heat would burn away any tears before they gathered and rolled down my cheeks. "My little sister: Fae."

I jumped as Maggie's warm hand -soft, despite being a farmers daughter- reached across the dirt and took mine that was free of the blanket. My throat convulsed and I squeezed, despite myself. When I spoke, it was looking at Maggie, because she would understand. "She was twelve."

Her lips folded, as if she wanted to cry for me, and I had to glance away, because if I continued to look at her the tears would come thick, and fast and I wasn't ready for that. As I stared into the darkness, I realised what the feeling was in my chest. The tingles between mine and Maggie's clasped hands, what was happening between us. We were sharing it: the desperate need to love and protect your baby sister. To show her the right way but also pick her up and dust her off when she got it wrong. All of a sudden, I was in and so was she.

Maggie was the second one, right after angelic, beautiful Beth who reminded me of a girl I once was. Now it was strong, graceful Maggie who went to college and tried to escape the farm girl title she had been bestowed, before. Who had changed, like I had to make me into the girl that I was now.

One person at a time.

"I bet you did everythin' you could. I _know_ you did, Dani." And the nickname wasn't a joke anymore.

I squeezed her hand again, and I didn't let go. My gaze drifted back to the fire because I couldn't look at anyone. Not sweet baby Judith, not Beth bathed in golden fairy light, not Carl who would have been my little sister's age, and not Daryl, who had already seen so much of _me._ Mind, body, soul. That man held more pieces of me than anyone alive today and his gaze was penetrating me. He was _staring_. What he was looking for, I didn't know, but I wasn't brave enough to glance up and find out either. I glanced over at Rick instead, and he nodded. Okay. I was okay. I could stay. We spent the rest of the night swapping stories.

Adventures from before, tales from our youth, the things we missed the most, not the people because there were far too many of them to list. Beth started singing again and I sought Daryl out through the fire with a smile when he glanced away from me, secure in the knowledge that he was enjoying it but not showing it, because it was too ingrained into him: to be a man. I suspected it was because of his brother: Merle, from what he had said yesterday, about Merle calling him a pussy. I drifted off to sleep under the lull of Beth's songs, my head lay on Maggie's knee and my blanket wrapped tight around me.

I don't know how much later it was when I was rocked awake. I sprang upwards, my ribs pulsing as my hand searched for my knife. Except I couldn't reach it. Panic. I was all wrapped up in my blanket, and _shit_ that walker was going to tear me to pieces any second.

"Stop. S'me," Daryl's voice brought me to a half-consciousness that allowed me to realise that I was talking to a human.

I stopped searching for my knife, letting my hands fall loose, and blinked away the sleep from my eyes. As I started to take in more of my surroundings I noticed that the fire was out, the night was cool and the others were packing up their blankets; heading inside. Daryl was helping me up, keeping the blanket around my shoulders. He let me go to begin the walk back inside but I nearly tumbled over from my bad leg and so he wrapped his arm back around my waist. Everyone said goodnight as we got inside except for Rick, who went back to take overnight watch.

I did plan to go to my cell but Daryl's arm around my waist guided me to his. I softly leaned my head against his side and he grunted like I was heavy, but I was barely leaning on him. When we got in I immediately lay down on his bunk, curling onto my side. He took longer, shrugging out his coat and then sitting to unlace his boots. I was waking up a little more now, and I remembered that we hadn't spoken since our argument. I rubbed my eyes with my knuckles and settled into the bedroll, sitting up and propping my back with his thin pillow, spreading my blanket over my lap.

"What's up?" I asked sluggishly because it was clear he wanted to talk but I hadn't fully come to yet.

He climbed in next to me, now done with his boots, and so I leant my head on his shoulder again so that he didn't have to look at me. He seemed to talk better when he didn't have to make eye contact, and I liked lying on his chest. From the corner of my vision, I saw his hand move and hover until he took a deep breath and settled it on the crown of my head, playing with my hair like he had this morning.

"I's talkin' to Carol earlier," he murmured.

"I know," I whispered back, burying my face in his chest. "What were you talking about?"

"You," he replied instantly and I grimaced.

"Saying?"

"How young ya are."

I laughed because that was the very last thing I had expected him to say. "Stop. You are. Years younga than me anyhow."

"Is that what's been bothering you?" I asked into his shoulder.

He shrugged, lifting my head up and down with the movement. "'Mount of years 'tween us, I coulda bin your daddy."

I snorted. "There isn't _that_ many!"

"Boys been gettin' girls knocked up since fourteen where I's from." His fingers kept sifting through my hair, sometimes catching it hard and stinging my scalp, but I appreciated the effort.

"Wow, are you that old?" I laughed and then cringed when his body locked up. I tipped my chin against his shoulder. He didn't look down at me, just in front of himself. "I'm joking. It really doesn't matter. It wouldn't have then, and it doesn't now. Especially now, Daryl."

"You're still young," he repeated, pressing his lips to the cut on my forehead almost without thought. "Thas' all I kep' thinkin' when we was driving home, last night. How you haven' had time to live. Jus' feel like s'wasted on someone like me."

I smiled and kissed his shoulder. "You're sweet, but I'm not too young to decide who to give my time to. I like you; I want you, and I'm choosing you. It's time."

I meant it, but my stomach still flipped around as the words floated on the air. It seemed that I had made my decision. I was keeping the door open and walking through it. Life was precious -especially now- and I chose Daryl. I chose this group. It was time. First Beth, then Maggie and now Daryl.

One at a time.

He chewed his bottom lip, and I remembered how rough and uneven they were that night by the fire at the creek. "Ya think you woulda bin with me… before?" He asked it flippantly, but I knew it was bothering him, especially now that I had said that I was choosing him.

I shrugged. "I mean, I wouldn't have been in Georgia to meet you, would I? Without the walkers, I would never know you." I stopped for a second and then shrugged again because I really didn't know.

"My mom wouldn't have approved. She wanted a lot of things for me that didn't include boyfriends, of any age. But I was twenty-one then and living a mundane life. I feel about fifty now, not twenty-four, and I _do_ find you attractive. If we'd met, I would have wanted you enough to try, just like I do now."

It was the truth, though it seemed pointless, him wondering about it. Besides, he probably wouldn't have wanted me, before. Young and dumb, and so optimistic I damn near got on everybody's nerves without even trying. I was just a little girl, and Daryl seemed like he'd always been a man, even before surviving the walkers and everything that came with this new world.

"I ain't..." he started and stopped, stuck on whatever he thought he wasn't capable of being.

"Good at this?" I supplied, hoping he didn't get offended.

He snorted, which I hoped meant he hadn't. "Yeah. I want ya, but I don't wanna piss ya off or fuck up. I don't wanna hurt you."

I moved my face from his shoulder and pressed it against his bare arm, which was so thick, and hot and good that I groaned. Over his _arm._

"You're just overthinking," I muttered, because that's exactly what I was doing, about another hot, thick part of him that could make me moan. "Just shut off your brain and anything telling you that you're doing something wrong," I advised.

Daryl scoffed and rolled his shoulders as if he was trying to avoid tensing up. "Easy for you to say. You ain't me."

Finally, I glanced up at him. He didn't look down at me, just continued to comb his fingers through the strands of my hair. "So… tell me about you?" I offered.

Daryl shook his head, his body tightening perceptively beneath my hands. "'Nother time."

I tucked my chin back down, biting my lip at the rejection. I couldn't force him to talk to me, and I didn't want to, so it wasn't fair to get upset with him when he wouldn't. Daryl was very clearly a quiet, private man who had gone through some rough things even before the walkers came. I needed to respect that, but my curiosity burned inside me. I _really_ liked Daryl, more than liked him. Like wasn't a good enough word. Love was too much. Like wasn't enough. It made me think of Carol when she said words weren't enough to describe relationships anymore.

Either way, whatever I felt about Daryl, and wherever it was leading, I was pretty sure that Daryl felt the same way, if only just a little. Enough to be here with me. To keep spending time with me. To stay on the fence yesterday, helping me clear it when he could have got someone else to do it, and to go on that run too. To actually _run_ when I was trapped under that piece of ceiling, to run again with me in his arms when he got to the prison so that Hershel could fix me up. Then even more than that. Cuddling me to sleep twice now. Telling me he wasn't good at relationships, and his heated gaze in the shower.

The fact that I was here now, in his bunk where he had led me when he could have just let me go to my own cell. All of these things meant something. Like it meant something that he saved my life, at the creek. That I didn't try and take his. That I stripped in front of him, and that we had sex before we even knew each other's surname. Overall, whatever he felt about me, I knew that I more than cared about him; was attracted to him. Besides, I knew him enough. It wasn't the old world anymore. You didn't need dates and constant texts to understand somebody.

You just had to listen to them speak, see who they chose to spend their precious time with. Daryl was a good man, and I _knew_ him as much as he knew me. I knew that he would die for anybody in this group. I knew that he would kill for anybody in this group. I knew that he liked Beth's singing but wouldn't admit it to her. I knew that he cradled Judith close to his chest with that look in his eye that said he would never have that for himself, but that he might have _wanted_ it, someday, if he was another man, in another time.

I knew without a doubt that he couldn't understand how so many people could love him, and I knew that he felt like he didn't deserve that love. I knew Daryl, in ways I hadn't even thought I did until that moment. I didn't need him to pour his heart out, to tell me all his woes and secrets, the bad things I suspected he went through in his life. But I did want him to. I wanted to be that person that he came to with his worries. I wanted to be the woman he sought comfort in like he did with Carol. I wanted to have his back, and for him to have mine.

I wanted Daryl Dixon all to myself, and I wanted him to be okay with that.

I sighed and pressed my cheek tighter to his chest, clenching his shirt in my fist against his stomach. "I want you," I whispered quietly, like a secret trapped in my chest.

Daryl's hand stilled in my hair and my stomach flipped over, unsure of his reaction. He was still for long enough to make my heart pound before his fingers sank back into the curtain of my hair, the rough pads of them spreading a fine tingle over my whole skull. His fingers tightened around the strands and yanked. I gasped, a dark, hot _want_ spiralling like a storm deep in my belly until it pooled between my thighs. He stared down at me through the hair obscuring his face and my lower body locked up at the look that was in his eyes.

I remembered in that moment, what he had said to me in the shower, about how he liked it rough, and that I couldn't handle it. Really, what he had been trying to say was that he was scared. Scared that his rougher treatment and darker mood would scare me away, or that he would hurt me, and not just because of my ribs, or my stitches. But I hadn't lied when I had told him that I liked it rough too, and I stared back at him with the permission I knew he was seeking.

He wasn't slow, or gentle when he took my mouth.


	6. I want you

Daryl's kiss was rough.

His teeth crashed against mine, and he bit down hard, more than he kissed soft. Didn't mean I didn't soak through my underwear, almost immediately. I squeezed my thighs together and groaned into his mouth, my hand fisting into his hair and tugging as sharply as he was tugging mine.

"Daryl. I want you," I whispered because I was lost in the heat and taste of his mouth and I didn't want to say anything that would make him tense and send me packing back to my cell.

I pushed the blanket out of the way, took him by the biceps and pulled, arranging my legs so that he had to spread himself across the top of me, pressing into all the right places. His lips were a little gentler now but his calloused fingers were rough against my warm cheeks and his body was so hard, pressing against all my curves deliciously. I groaned again because I wanted this so bad it was a pulsating ache between my thighs. His large hands fell from my face and instead slipped beneath me, his little finger and thumb on both hands spanning hip to hip.

It felt so good, being smaller and cradled in his big body. His hands clamped around my waist and then started pushing upwards. The material of my top rolled up my hips fast but got gentler around my bruised ribs. I briefly lifted my upper back to help him, cradling his face into the hollow of my throat whilst he worked the material up and over my chest and then over my shoulders. Leaning back down, I unhooked my arms from him so that he could rip my t-shirt off and fling it somewhere in the cell. My skin was burning up like I had a fever, and it didn't help one bit when Daryl bent his head over me and latched his mouth onto my collar bones, one after the other.

I gasped, low and quiet so no one heard and wrapped my fingers in his hair, both pulling and pushing him because I couldn't decide which would be worse: for him to keep going, or for him to stop. He growled into my skin, an honest to God growl that made my hair stand on end and a gush of arousal to flood between my legs. His hands got rougher on my flesh, his kisses hard and biting on my shoulders, driving me to madness. Before long I was pressing my hips to his, grinding them against his evident erection and sobbing with the need to have him inside me again.

"Off," he grunted, shoving his hands under me and fumbling at the clip on my bra.

I growled back at him, my teeth clenched because our pants needed to come off, not my damn bra and the heels of his hands were pressing into my sore ribs, but I lifted up anyway and helped him undo it. He pulled it from the front, yanking it without care down my arms. A spike of adrenaline poured like a dose of lighter fluid through my bloodstream. He wasted no time devouring my exposed and ignited skin, his hot mouth wrapping tight around my nipple and biting so hard that it burned all the way down, spreading across my insides like venom. My hips jerked clean off of the bed, grinding against his in desperation.

"Daryl!" And this time his name wasn't a prayer but a demand.

Big, calloused hands slid down my rib cage, gentle as a feather, and then circled my waist for a moment to squeeze tight, digging the rough pads of his fingers into my soft skin before he was dragging my pants and underwear down at the same time. Except I still had my boots on and all the material got bunched around my ankles.

"Fuck sake," I griped, not even able to hunch around Daryl's bent body to rip at my boot laces and get it all off of me.

Daryl didn't help one fucking bit, his mouth taking in my unexplored nipple and sucking softer than he had the other one, lavishing it and leaving behind a cool wetness that was in stark contrast to the heat beginning to soak my inner thighs. I finally distracted him enough so that he would unlace my boots and pull them off, followed by my bunched-up pants. I lay back down, bringing Daryl's head with me. He groaned around my nipple, where his mouth had latched onto again now, and reached up his hand to tweak at the other one.

I tipped my head back on a moan, my fingers buried in his hair and pulling at the roots in approval. His mouth moved on from my hard nipples to the valley of my breasts with rough whisker kisses. Panting, I strained my neck as my clit pulsed with desperation. My fingers flexed and tightened in his hair, tugging and pushing again. He refused to be dragged and instead let me push him down, and right between my legs. His hands shoved underneath me so that his arms were looped around my thighs and his palms were pressing down hard on my hips.

I bit my lip to calm the fuck down because everyone was in bed, and my heart was racing and he was right _there._ I couldn't bear to look down at him, and couldn't bare not to either. So, I did, and _fuck_ but did I call this man _shy_? The minute our eyes connected his mouth pressed hot and tight against my clit, enveloping it into such heat that I had to bite the back of my hand not to scream. It didn't feel orchestrated, or practised, and it was fucking amazing. He _ate_ me. Raw devouring that turned my insides to jelly and made my legs shake.

He paused for one moment to breathe a secret against my inner thigh where his mouth was slick and warm. "Been wantin' to do that since I firs' saw you. S'your fuckin' _eyes_."

Fucking shy!

His hands tightened against my hips, digging his fingers in and pinning me to the bed as he dived back in, stroking the rough pad of his tongue against my oversensitive clit. Where his hands splayed across my hips, his fingers dipped down to spread me open. I barely had time to acclimate to the intense exposure before his tongue was moving again, agonisingly slow. I whimpered until he finally reached the spot he had been hunting for, and when he did, I had to pull his pillow over my face -damn near suffocating myself- just so that I didn't scream when he pushed his tongue inside me.

He pulled me tightly by the hips to press down on his tongue and didn't move it, leaving me to settle, and to feel the thick, soft muscle buried inside me. He stayed still for so long like that, that my breathing slowed slightly and my legs unclenched from around his head, settling back onto either side of it loosely. One of my hands released its death grip on his pillow to blindly reach down and seek out the strands of his hair. I combed my fingers through it, my eyes closed and the pillow resting softly on my face. My nerves endings zinged and popped throughout my body as they began to relax, and allowed me to calm down.

I lifted the pillow a few inches with one hand and allowed myself a quick glance down now that I had pushed his hair from his face. I almost regretted it, because it was such a fucking amazing sight but it nearly made me cum right then and there, without him even moving. Daryl's eyes were closed, his mouth pressed tight to the centre of me and his face arranged into a look of pure _ecstasy_ as if he were feeling the pleasure that I was, and not bestowing it. Moaning loudly, I lay back and closed my eyes, my hips straining against his mouth and the pillow now back on my face.

He didn't give into me, no matter how much I ground my hips against his face and tried to force his tongue to stroke my inner walls. Instead, he tightened his hands around my hips, stretching me wider and forcing me to be still. I protested, nearly suffocating him as I pushed his head tightly between my thighs with my hand on the back of his head.

Daryl growled and pulled his tongue out with a wet squelch. "Quit, or I ain't gonna keep goin'. Leave ya to suffer 'nstead."

I whimpered into the pillow and then lifted it a few inches to glance down and see if he was serious. He was. I pulled the pillow back and whimpered a tortured sound again. Daryl slid his tongue back in, starting the whole process of relaxing all over again. He seemed to have endless patience and used it to wait me out. Wait until my breathing became more regulated and my eyes closed. Then his tongue moved. I cried out as he fucked me hard with it, his rough fingers biting the skin of my hips the more I jerked and withered beneath his brutal fucking.

Behind the pillow, I was barely breathing, near faint with the need to cum. My skin was dripping with sweat, sticking me to the blanket trapped beneath me, and I felt like I was burning to the very ends of my hair. I wanted it to stop and I wanted it to never end, and it was so overwhelming that tears burst across the back of my eyes and I really was sobbing, my stomach concaving as I tightened all over. Daryl felt my inner walls begin to convulse around his tongue, I _know_ he did, and I know that was why he removed it and sliced it hard across my clit, making my legs twitch violently.

"Hold on," he pressed the words against the skin of my inner thigh, biting into the muscle and sucking hard, marking me. "Jus' a bit longa'," and it was like he was begging.

I laughed breathlessly against the pillow even if my inner walls squeezed at his words because I was fucking _pulsing_ between my legs, grasping for something that wasn't there and crying out every time I came back empty with nothing to grip. Just the open air in the small space between us was enough to keep me on the knife's edge. A flick of Daryl's finger and it was going to be game over for me. I didn't think I could go for 'just a bit longer.' Shit, I just cum so fucking fast when I was with him. He dipped back again, first going so fast my legs locked up and _shook_ all at the same time, and then slowing down.

The pleasure was intense, so stark and right there, right beneath his soft mouth. I wanted to exist in it forever, to live in this beautiful in-between space. My head rolled across the bedroll, his pillow blocking all light and most sound so that every movement of his tongue was so much _more_. Every squeeze of his fingers was tender, and every sharp bite on my thighs -marking me up good and leaving my inner thighs stinging- was beautiful, delicious, torturous agony. I wanted it so goddamn much, I just couldn't take it.

"Daryl, _please_. I want you, please."

I threw the pillow to the side and strained upwards, making my ribs burn something fierce just so that he was pushed out from between my legs and had to come up to my eye level. His mouth was slick with my arousal, and I made a strangled sound in the back of my throat as his tongue popped out to clean some of my wetness off.

"I want you," I breathed again, desperately, as I began pulling at his shirt, trying to undo it and get it off all at the same time.

His shoulders tensed and I remembered that thought I'd had in the shower, where I wondered what it was about his body that he didn't want me to see. It seemed like I had found it. When I had first had sex with him at the creek, I had slipped my hands up under his top to touch his stomach and chest. So it could only be his back. Tattoos he was ashamed of? A birthmark, or multiple birthmarks? Scars? Was he simply self-conscious about not being insanely ripped, or something along those lines? I hadn't _seen_ his stomach or chest, only felt it. Could they be okay to touch, but not see?

"What? What is it?" I asked breathlessly, still high on my need to cum and my blood pumping hot and thick through my veins, pounding in my ears.

"Nothin', jus' a waste a time, don't need to take it off." He pushed my questioning fingers away, clasping my wrists between his thick hands tight enough that I couldn't get them out.

It sent a thrill straight through me, and he noticed.

Daryl noticed everything.

For the first time, ever, I saw him smirk. I nearly cum at that look alone, and again when he asked his next question. "Ya like that?"

I bit my lip, my face on fire, and wiggled against the bed in desperate need of friction. He didn't stop smirking, that damn little kick on the left side of his mouth that made my stomach flutter anew every time I looked because I had never seen him look like that. Eager. Keeping my two wrists in his one rough hand, he used his other to undo his belt. My eyes dropped down to watch and my mouth went dry the minute I saw that he was a commando kind of man. He yanked roughly on my wrists as he pushed his cock free and gripped my ass, lifting me onto his lap and settling back on his feet.

My heart pounded and so did my clit as his erection pressed tight against me, rubbing tantalisingly through my wetness. A spike of whining heat wound down my spine from the very base of my skull, igniting in my gut and into the very core of me. Grinding my hips against him made him growl again, and provoked him enough to lift me one handed straight onto his awaiting arousal. The head of his cock pushed tight against me and I groaned loudly, wiggling my hips a little to help. Daryl moved the hand from my ass up to my hip, pushing me down hard.

I gasped, a twinge of pain spreading across my hips and deep inside me where he was buried. "Shit."

Daryl hummed in response, the vibration flowing from him to me. "So fuckin' tight."

My wrists were still caught in his big hand and he again had the flesh of my ass squeezed in his other fist. I didn't waste any more time after I had adjusted, lifting and dropping my hips fast enough to make my head spin, my ribs scream in protest and Daryl's fingernails to dig so deep in my ass that it stung. My head fell back between my shoulders, my wrists stuck between my sweat slicked stomach and Daryl's shirt. His mouth latched hard onto my pulse as I pushed down again, taking in every inch of him.

Two minutes.

I pretty sure that was all it took for me to throw my head into his shoulder -ramming him in the jaw in the process- and scream. My climax rolled through me, wave after wave after wave, making my stomach clench and my legs tighten to the point of cramping. My ears were screaming with white noise, and I couldn't hear a thing apart from the intense sound of my own soul destroying orgasm. Daryl didn't make it much further than me. The minute my walls started to milk him he flung my wrists away, keeping a hold of my ass but reaching up to cradle the back of my head and smother my face into the hollow of his throat.

Then his hips pounded me, snapping hard and rough right against my cervix, his pelvic bone against my clit, until my hips screamed with the pain and I was cumming all over again. I couldn't breathe against his shoulder, my face burning and my vision shot to hell, my hips aching and my brain screaming. I was nearing the point of passing out when he lifted me clean off his cock and let me fall against the bedroll, roughly flipping me over onto all fours. I gasped breathlessly, reaching forward to grab the bars framing the bed.

He gave me no time to catch my breath, pushing his own knee between my knees and shoving them apart. His hands grabbed my hips again and shoved back inside me with a groan. I cried out in pain but he smoothed it away wordlessly by rolling his hips against my ass. I bowed my head forward, pressing my face into the pillow and throwing my hips back. Daryl's breathing was loud in the quiet cell, and the slap of our skin was the most erotic sound I'd heard bar his growling. I squeezed the cold bar beneath my fingers and shoved my hips hard into his, just as sharply as he was pushing his into mine. He fucked me like an animal, more in this position than when I was riding him, and it was fucking beautiful.

"Daryl, please. God, I want you so bad, please," I begged.

I never used to be like this. I never begged, never spoke. No one ever made me feel like _this_ , before. But Daryl did, and I wasn't beyond begging anymore. I needed him to cum. I'd had two earth shattering orgasms, my thighs were soaked and my head felt fuzzy. I loved every second of him fucking me but he had worked me good, and my body couldn't take any more.

"You givin' up?" He panted.

Gasping, I deliberately tightened my inner muscles and had the satisfaction of him falling over my back as if his knees had given out. "No, but you're about to," I panted desperately, hoping I was right.

He groaned, and then his teeth locked into the tender space between my neck and shoulder.

"Shit!" I screamed, throwing my face back into the pillow to bite down on it.

The pain in my shoulder sparked a fire that raced across my spine and straight to my clit. I cum _again_ , my inner walls greedy around Daryl's cock where he was buried deep inside me. I barely had time to come down when he ripped out of me, hands leaving my hips. I glanced over my shoulder tiredly, watching as he gripped his erection and jerked four times. His milky cum splashed against my lower back and ass, and I lay my face back down on the pillow, sighing with intense satisfaction. My eyes had fluttered closed and my heart was racing as he collapsed on top of me, pressing his cum deep into my skin like a perverse lotion and staining his own shirt.

"Fuck," he grunted against my shoulder.

I wiggled beneath him so that I could turn over onto my back and envelop him in my spread thighs. Reaching up, I dragged my fingers through his sweaty hair half-heartedly. "Wow."

"We need condoms, cain't keep riskin' it like that. Did it last time too."

"Ask Glenn and Maggie, they got shit loads by the sounds of it," I murmured, my eyelids dropping closed already.

"I ain't askin' nobody for condoms. I'll get 'em on the next run."

"So, you're planning more sex?" I laughed quietly because I wasn't sure I could survive this go around let alone any more.

His shoulder shook like he had laughed too, but when he spoke he almost sounded worried, like I would be mad at his presumptions. "You started it."

"Daryl?" I mumbled.

"Hmm?"

"You're hurting my damn ribs."

"Fuck, sorry." He rolled off me instantly and instead scooped me into his side.

Then he laughed.

I was so shocked by the sound that I jumped. "What's so fucking funny?" I grinned because I'd never heard him laugh out loud before and I really liked it.

"Ya startin' to sound like us," he finally said, his thumb smoothing over the stitches in my forehead softly. "English accent but our slang. I heard ya say damn so much it's bugging the shit out of me, an' you started sayin' ass now too."

I laughed too but it was a sleepy one. "It's a sign, that I'm hanging around you too much."

"You don't hang 'round me 'nough," he grunted like it really bothered him.

I smiled. "Sorry for the neglect, I'll try and work you into my schedule more often. Should we start with a shower in the morning?" I teased, but I held my breath anyway.

Daryl hummed, pressing a gruff kiss to my forehead that warmed me from the very spot he had kissed me right down to my toes. "Have to beat Glenn an' Maggie, 'fore they claim it."

"I will," I whispered, curling my hand over Daryl's heart as he pulled the blanket over us. "I promise."


	7. So much more

Since the very first day that the dead started rising, I hadn't slept for more than four hours at a time. It had probably been even less when Fae was still alive because she was too young and scared to take a watch during the night, even if I did sleep deeper beside her small body. Sleep became a luxury fairly quickly, back in those few months with her. I only ever succumbed to exhaustion when I physically couldn't take anymore and it only got worse when she was gone. So much worse. Nightmares meant that I screamed myself awake, alerting every walker around to my presence.

I did the same thing in the end: only slept when my body could physically take no more and I passed out, pulled under too deep to dream at all. Yet despite those months of no sleep, those days where I just collapsed on the ground from sheer exhaustion, every night that I had shared a bed with Daryl Dixon's warm, large body curled around me, I slept solidly. Even better than before, when I had been living a relatively normal and safe life. But tonight my eyes opened to the inky darkness that suggested early hours, as I had done so many times in the past three years, and soft cries, perceptible even through Daryl's snoring in my ear.

At first, I had thought that the cries had been my own because I had woken from the same nightmare I'd had on repeat since the day Fae died. Except it couldn't have been me because, despite the sweat clinging to my naked body and the terror making my heart pound, my teeth were clenched shut. I listened a little harder and found that it was Judith, crying out into the night, the sound ringing off the walls. My eyes wouldn't slide back shut so I stirred in Daryl's arms and worked myself free of his grasp.

His hands caught me just as I was free, bringing me tumbling back to the bedroll. "Beth'll get Lil' Ass Kicker," he whispered, trying to tuck me back in.

I glanced over my shoulder, smiling at his dishevelled hair and half closed eyes. "Beth needs a break, and I'm up now."

He grunted, pressing his face between my shoulder blades. "Fine."

Squeezing his arms once, he removed them from my waist and settled back onto the bedroll, pillowing his head with his arm. His hair was mussed, his eyes half lidded and his stance relaxed. All he needed now was to be shirtless, and I may not have had the willpower to start getting dressed and leave him. While I thought of him getting _un_ dressed _,_ he shamelessly watched me as I got _re_ dressed _,_ pulling on my pants and top, but forgoing my underwear and boots. "Keep looking at me like that and I'm going to send you straight back to sleep," I teased him with a smirk.

The left side of Daryl's mouth kicked up like it had a few hours ago, with my wrists trapped between his big, rough hands. He seemed a little more confident now, more willing to smirk and arrange his face into expressions that depicted his mood. Getting laid seemed to do him good. It certainly made me feel giddy, especially when he looked like _that_. _"_ _Stop_ ," I groaned and hurried over to kiss him before I could button up my pants.

His neck tipped back to follow the movement of my lips and I moaned softly. Pulling back, I buttoned up my jeans as I spoke. "If you were shirtless, I don't think I could even contemplate leaving right now."

Daryl visibly tensed, his smirk sliding away and my stomach went a little funny at the pain that tightened his mouth. "Sorry," I whispered quickly. "That wasn't fair. I know you must have your reasons."

He was still for a moment before he nodded, but didn't make any motions to explain and instead chewed on the inside of his mouth. "I won't be long," I promised as Judith's cries got a little louder.

I didn't wait for a response before I dipped out of his cell, pushing aside the curtain hanging over the bars. The moment my feet pressed to the cold concrete, I regretted not at least putting my socks back on. I hadn't noticed the cold back in Daryl's cell, but I could feel it now. My toes numbed first where they tiptoed, and then the arches of my feet after as they settled. Judith's cries continued on, which meant Beth hadn't woken to them yet. I hurried along so I could get there before she did, a scowl twisting my mouth. Not because of Beth, but because I knew for a fact that the whole group were light sleepers.

You had to be, sleeping out on the open road where walkers could take a chunk out of you, or humans could steal your supplies. That didn't change when you got walls and fences, so I also knew for a fact that they would be able to hear Judith crying, and they were ignoring it, just expecting Beth to pick her up and deal with her. I couldn't necessarily blame Rick at that moment because he was out on overnight watch, but I knew that he had done it more than a few times himself. When I finally reached Beth's cell, I pushed through the curtain over the bars and glanced into the dim room.

I could see Beth's blonde hair across her pillow, but her blanket was pulled up to cover her face. She must have been exhausted if she hadn't heard Judith by now. She usually jumped up at even a twitch. Leaning over Judith's crib, I gently scooped her up in my arms, taking a half filled bottle from the steel cabinet on my way out. Judith continued to cry as I hurried out with her, climbing the stairs to the catwalk to try and draw the sound from the others. I checked first if she needed her nappy changed, but she didn't so I bundled her in her blanket and pressed the bottle to her lips.

She immediately began to suckle away greedily, her cries quieting as I cradled her close to my chest. Her eyes were drooping only minutes after the milk trickled into her soft, wet mouth and I glanced around the block as I rocked her gently. Movement from below made me glance over the railing and I could see Glenn stumbling out, half awake. He hurried out alone, which meant that he was going to swap shifts with Rick, dawn now breaking out across the sky. Judith was now completely quiet in my arms but wasn't yet asleep because she continued to suckle.

As I glanced down at her, I understood what Beth had said about feeling sorry for her. The way in which her mouth worked the teat of the bottle made me wonder if she was desperate for the milk of her own mother, the clasp of a warm breast against her soft cheek. Made me wonder if she knew who her dad was, and if the reason she cried in Rick's arms was because she knew the truth: that both her parents were dead now. Just as I thought it, Rick came walking quietly into the block, looking tired and worn thin.

I didn't say anything to alert him to my presence, but you always knew when someone was around these days. His eyes snapped up to me where I was perched on the stairs, feeding Judith. They seemed to flicker between me, and his cell, undecided. I made no move to invite or deny him to come up but he seemed to decide the former because he made his way over to the staircase before he quietly climbed them. My stomach squirmed a little as he got closer. I didn't know Rick very well. I knew we had shared a moment, across the fire where he had granted his final decision: that I could stay. But I didn't know him any better than that.

We rarely spoke unless it was passing comments, such as a mumbled "thanks," and, "be careful." He seemed to slow down for a moment on the stairs as if he was rethinking his decision before he took another two firm steps and sat down on the stair directly beneath mine.

Judith's lips released the teat of her bottle and I gently eased it out of her mouth, noticing that it was all gone. "Hey," I greeted softly.

Rick took the bottle from me where I held it aloft. "Hey."

I wrapped Judith a little tighter in her blanket, cradling her closer. I didn't truly understand why. I guess I just knew, much like Beth that this was the closest I was going to get to ever having my own baby girl, my own child. "Beth's exhausted, and I was up," I offered by way of explanation for being out here with his daughter.

Rick just nodded, twirling the empty bottle between his fingers. "Thank you. You look after her just as much as Beth does."

I smiled, smoothing my knuckle over Judith's soft cheek. "Beth's doing so much more than me. You should thank her." The comment was a little sharper than I intended, but I was still thinking about the way everyone overlooked Beth.

Rick laughed quietly, and I looked up in surprise from Judith's face. She really didn't look like him. It broke my heart. "You don't bull shit," Rick explained his laughter. "You remind me of Daryl sometimes."

Tucking my chin into my chest, I hid the smile the comment brought to my face. Carol had said the same thing. "Could die any minute of any hour, Rick. Haven't got time to bull shit people. Beth deserves a hell of a lot more credit than she gets, from all of you."

I waited quietly after that, my chest sort of tight. Rick may have said he appreciated my lack of bull shit, but I didn't want to overstep my mark. He was still the decision maker, and he could still decide to toss me out on my ass. Although I was warmed by the fact that I may have some protesters now, like Beth, and Daryl. Maggie and Carol.

People who would fight for my place.

"I know. I just don't know how to tell her… how much it means." Rick's voice was soft, tired.

I glanced up at him where he looked down at his raised knees. I didn't know how to reply, but Rick didn't let me. "It was different, raisin' Carl compared to raisin' Judith, now."

I snorted quietly. "Of course it is, Rick. We're in the middle of the apocalypse."

Rick laughed beneath his breath. "More than that. So much more."

My stomach clenched a little tighter and I remained silent because I was sure he was alluding to the fact that Judith was more than likely not his. If Beth was too timid to ask about the situation between him, his wife and his best friend, then I wasn't going to make it known that I had my own inklings. I felt like he just wanted to talk though, so I didn't speak and let him do it instead.

"I was a great dad, for Carl. Did the night feeds an' the nappies an' everythin'."

I smiled and Rick smiled too, his eyes glazed with the memory. Then his face turned to Judith's sleeping one and the smile slipped, his eyes churning with things that would never be unseen. "She's not mine," he whispered quietly, so much so that I almost missed it. "Lori was havin' an' affair with Shane, my best friend… my partner, before…"

He stopped, and I thought he was going to leave it there, hanging between us until he continued. "Even afta' she knew I was alive, afta' I came back."

My stomach dive bombed because I didn't understand why he was telling me and what I was meant to do or say in this situation. Did I make out like I knew? Did I feign shock? But Rick had said he appreciated my lack of bull shit and from the very day I had met that man I had levelled him with a look that said he wouldn't rule me, wouldn't decide my life.

"I know," I whispered in the end.

Rick's eyes flashed to me and I worried for half a second that he was going to kick off and demand who had been gossiping about him, but he simply nodded. "I think everybody does. Afta' I killed Shane, an' I lost Lori."

I nodded because I knew this too, that losing his wife had nearly sent him steam rolling off the deep end, and that Carl having to put her down before she became a threat had broken his heart. Beth had said that was why he started rising with the crack of dawn, why he asked her daddy about planting crops and took both Daryl and Glenn on runs to find any living animals.

"Do you hate her?" I whispered and I didn't know who I meant myself, his wife or Judith, his possible daughter.

Rick shook his head, though. "No. I loved Lori. I love Judith. I loved Shane. But the world changed, and the people changed. Emotions ain't the same. They mean more, now."

I nodded, and again it sounded similar to what Carol had said earlier, about words not being good enough. Rick sighed and turned to face me once more, locking eyes. "I know you know, but I want you to stay. You're good for us. A piece that's bin' missing. You're good for Daryl. You look out for Beth, you look after my daughter… you show my son how to be a boy again."

My cheeks flushed at the compliments. This was the most Rick had ever spoken to me and it was making me flustered like I never usually was. He seemed like such a hard man to please, after the things he had been through. Worse than the others, in terms of trusting. I was pretty sure that if Daryl hadn't had vouched for me, then Rick probably would have shot me on sight.

"You've bin' doing things around this place like you don't even plan 'em when I've been churnin' over ways to put 'em in place since we got the prison," Rick spoke again, clambering to his feet.

I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything at all. Daylight was breaking through now, and Rick seemed so bone tired that it was possible he would skip his usual routine this morning. He reached his arms over after tucking the bottle into the crook of his arm, and I passed Judith along, making sure she wasn't too jostled in her blankets.

Before my arms pulled back -me and Rick both cradling Judith- he caught my eye again. "Thank you," he whispered, sincerely.

"Thank you, for letting me in."

To your home, your life, your family, and your children's lives. Rick knew that I didn't just mean the prison. He nodded and I removed my arms from Judith, settling her into his. One person at a time. We walked down the stairs together and I whispered a quiet goodnight. Carl popped out yawning to get up with his Dad, but Rick sent him back to bed. As I made my way back to Daryl's cell, I was grinning ear to ear. One person at a time. I had thought that just a handful of days ago, lying in bed and laughing at Glenn's moaning.

Now, look at where I was. All these people had just tumbled in, one after the other. Worming their way into my heart. Beth, and Carol, then Maggie and Daryl, and now even Rick. I had to take a second to breathe, to really mull it over. What this meant. All these new people that I cared for. The things I would do for them, and the things they would do for me. How two people had told me that I was just like Daryl, and how Beth positively rooted for us. How Maggie could see it before me: how much I cared.

My chest was rapidly getting tighter but I fought away the panic and held onto the golden light unfurling inside me. It wasn't a death sentence, to love these people, and it wasn't betrayal. My dead little sister and mom weren't going to be forgotten just because I had found more people to love. They were going to be there forever, giving me the strength every day to live on. I pressed my hand flat to my chest for a moment, massaging away the pain as I pushed beneath the sheet hanging over Daryl's cell with my free hand.

The tightness was easing until suddenly it was very much there again, accompanied by a very thick tightening in my throat that made me gasp aloud into the quiet of the cell. Daryl had taken his top off. His back was faced to the door, waiting for me, I knew. He didn't move or speak as if he were sleeping, but I had seen the way he tensed as I gasped. He was awake. Of course he was. I would have woken him even if he was sleeping because he was a skilled hunter and a light sleeper. I swallowed heavily, trying to regain my composure because I knew that he didn't want his shirt off for a reason and yet he had done it anyway.

Just like the hug, he was putting himself way out of his comfort zone because I had mentioned it. I hadn't demanded, I hadn't asked and I hadn't begged. But Daryl bent over backwards to make even off-handed requests happen. The blanket covered none of his upper body, but pooled around his naked waist and exposed the whole of his back. His scarred back. His tattoos. My throat convulsed again and my fingers slid upwards, gripping it to keep any noises inside that would make him fly off into a rage, and stop pretending that he was sleeping.

He didn't have to tell me how he got them. He trusted me enough to show me, and that was truly all that mattered. The stories behind them, they could come another day, when he was truly ready. I wished he hadn't forced himself to do this for me, but I was overwhelmed with gratitude and respect for him anyway. He was so much more than he allowed himself to believe he was.

So much more.

I walked quietly over to the bed, and quickly stripped my clothes. I lifted the blanket, getting a flash of his bare ass and slid in, pushing him towards the wall. Daryl shuddered as my breasts and stomach pressed into his back, so tense it was difficult to mould myself around him. I didn't know what to say, because if I expressed how much it meant he would think I was pitying him. I didn't know if avoiding the topic would fluster him, as if I were ashamed of his scars and tattoos as much as he clearly was. There was a toss-up for a split second inside me to fall back on sarcasm, avoid the subject or approach it.

Then I thought back not five minutes ago to my talk with Rick. He said I was like Daryl, and that I didn't bull shit. Carol had near enough said the same thing, and Daryl valued her opinion -put stock into her- so maybe he would appreciate me just being me. My hands softly rubbed over his arms and I wrapped them around him from behind, hitching my leg up onto his bare hip. His rough hand fell onto my thigh, sending sparks of awareness across the network of my skin and coaxing goose bumps, no longer pretending to sleep.

"You are _amazing,_ " I breathed into his ear.

Daryl snorted but his shoulders relaxed and I grinned. "So much more than you think. So much more."

"Ya such a girl," he groused, squeezing my leg but he sounded okay.

"I think you get off on me being younger than you, Dixon," I teased, my hands dipping forward to rub his chest, my eyes rolling in my head at how damn good it felt.

Daryl's head turned just slightly to look at me over his shoulder, through a string of his hair. He was smirking again. "Nah, you get off on me bein' older."

I balanced on one elbow and pressed tighter against his back, glancing at him beneath my lashes. "Maybe."

He groaned and shoved at me so that I was suddenly lay on my back, my thighs wrapped around him and both of us so mouth-wateringly _bare_. "Don't push it, Dani."

A shudder rolled through me. "Love it when you say my name," I said with a cheeky grin.

He smirked again, hair hanging around his face. "What's ya whole name?" He suddenly asked, surprising me.

"What's yours?" I challenged, tilting my head.

Daryl shifted onto his forearms so that he could sweep his thumb over the stitches in my forehead. "Ya know it: Daryl Dixon."

"Danielle Sanders," I whispered quietly, my family name like a burning throb in my chest, right over my heart.

"Like it," he whispered back.

I grinned. "I like yours too."

Daryl's head dipped into my neck, breathing hot air against my pulse. My hands drifted to his back, smoothing around and over his scars. He jerked and tensed, relaxed and shuddered in alternating patterns but not once did he tell me to stop, or shout at me, or kick me out of his bunk and his cell, so I kept going. All of a sudden, he was thrusting his cock against me, pressing against my centre where I was still slick from our fucking a few hours ago. I hummed in approval, spreading my thighs so that his cock slid from my clit all the way down through my wetness, the head of him pressing against my opening.

Daryl groaned in my ear, his hand fisting my hair again and tugging my head back. "Hav' to be fast, others are gonna be up soon. Ya wanna?" He whispered hotly.

My nails dug into his shoulder blades and he swore, plunging into me hard and reckless.

I gasped, lifting my legs higher on his hips. " _Yes_ , and _so_ much more."


	8. I fucking hate runs

I spent the next week making the two most gorgeous words I'd ever had the pleasure of hearing, spew aggressively from between Daryl's lips.

" _Shit,_ Dani _._ "

I groaned around him where he was buried thick and hot inside my mouth. My name in his rough voice was an aphrodisiac, sending molten heat straight through me. His fingers tightened in my hair, stinging my scalp something fierce, so I retaliated, hollowing my cheeks and digging my fingernails into each side of Daryl's hips.

"Fuckin' hell. Get _off,"_ he growled roughly: a warning that I had learned the first time I took him in my mouth.

I glanced up at him where water cascaded down his body, the spray wetting his hair and rolling down his chest, soaking my face where it settled on his hips. I hummed in appreciation at the sight, and Daryl's hot, thick erection pulsed on my tongue. His hands splayed wide across the back of my head and pushed down hard, choking me. With a loud growl from his throat, I swallowed every drop that he spurted across my tongue until he had emptied it all and fell loosely against the wall of the shower. Releasing him from the lock of my lips, I grinned wide and stretched up from where I had been perched on my knees, pressing my slick body against his.

"God, you're _hot_ ," I murmured against his wet throat.

His hands were weak and half-hearted as one curled around the nape of my neck and the other spanned across my shoulder blades. "Still no way I'm the firs' guy you ever blew. Ain't a chance."

I laughed, nuzzling my nose across his pulse and then tilting my head to lightly nip. His hands tightened around me. My inner thighs got slicker. "You loved being my first. Like you love being older than me. You're kinky as hell, Mr Dixon."

"Stop," he grumbled but even now his cheeks still tinged pink.

Although that could be from his orgasm.

I pressed my face against his shoulder and smiled, basking in the moment as my body moulded to his with the help of the water. Little more than a month ago and I had been alone, walking the soles of my boots thin and hissing with each blister that rubbed against my holey socks. Watching my little sister skip ahead of me, her back graceful and waist slim, on the cusp of thirteen. Then she would turn around and I would see the bite marks on her face. The chunk missing from her cheek and the skin peeling from her mouth.

I'd been so far gone into hallucinations at that point that I didn't even flinch anymore. Fae's mutilated face was a sickening comfort, even if she didn't reply when I spoke to her. Sleep was precious little, my food situation was a problem, and water too. The days were hot and the nights hotter. Anxiety and paranoia were my companions and the silence was deafening, everywhere I went. No traffic, and no animals. No people. No phone calls and no laughter. Then all of a sudden, so much noise.

The walkers, groaning from their hunger, like their bellies were crying out in desperation for fresh meat. The unfortunate victims who I could hear screaming from miles away. It was driving me mad, being out on the road. I _was_ mad. Seeing my dead little sister and talking to ghosts who didn't talk back. The silence, and the sounds and the _stench._ Then Daryl found me, and it was like it switched off. He wasn't a ghost, and he wasn't a walker. He didn't stink like rot and decay, and he _spoke._ He responded and he aimed a crossbow at my throat, and he had emotions and reactions and he was _real_.

I propositioned him because I needed to feel alive, and he was so very much alive. Now it was even better than that. Even better than just feeling alive, I was actually living. Waking up and doing productive things, looking after babies and exchanging conversations. Laughing and smiling with people. Having a very careful and very dangerous relationship all at the same time, with a complex man; loving every second of it. Loving every time he trusted me with a smile, or a laugh or an orgasm. He was an intricate puzzle and an open book in varying degrees.

He made my days worth living, more than Beth's singing and more than Judith's big, hopeful eyes. More than walls, and a bedroll and fences. Daryl Dixon was everything, and it scared the living shit out of me. I shouldn't have been in so deep so fast, and it wouldn't have happened like that if we weren't living in the world we were, but it did and it was. It happened the minute I lay trapped beneath that ceiling and called out his name, knowing he would have my back. Maybe even before that, maybe all the way back to the beginning when I just wanted somebody to know me.

Know what I smelt like, and felt like and what my name was. Emotion clung to me and begged to come out, but I couldn't tell him. I didn't think he felt the same way. Not yet, and maybe not ever. I knew he loved everyone here, he was capable of that. But I didn't know if he was capable of being _in_ love, or if he ever had been, before. All I knew for sure was that he was different with me. Different than he was with the group. He didn't treat them any less or spend less time with them, but I got a piece of him that no one else did, not even Carol, and it was enough.

He didn't have to know that I loved him and he didn't have to love me back. In this world, in this place, just having him to share my bed and have my back was enough. It was more than enough. I sighed and shifted out of his arms, the water running cold down my back. Maggie was going to have my ass over it when she came in here with Glenn.

Pushing away from Daryl, I gripped my hair and wrung it out. "Ugh, I need to hurry. Maggie wants a shower before we go on that run."

I shut off the shower, very nearly pouting at the thought of having to get dressed and go out without him. Daryl wrapped a towel around his waist as I wrapped one around myself, and then he hauled me one armed into his chest. He still hadn't really worked out how to hug me properly without smothering my face or squishing my arms, but it seemed more natural now, like he wanted one rather than he was giving me one because I wanted one.

"Rick should let me come with ya," he said into the wet crown of my head, dropping a kiss there before he released me.

I laughed and pushed my hair out of my face. It was even longer than it had been last week when it took mine and Daryl's eyes out on the bike, but he played with it so much that I couldn't find it in myself to cut it any shorter.

"We need more meat," I reminded him of Rick's argument. "And just because only women are going doesn't mean we need a man," I teased him with a poke to his ribs.

For a second he tensed because the pad of my finger grazed a scar, and he was still getting used to it: me seeing them all the time; touching them. But it took less time that it usually did for him to relax and I smothered a smile because I didn't want him to know that I realised every time: the conscious effort he put into it.

"Don't mean it like that," he said after a minute, taking the towel from around his waist so that he could start dressing. "Carol an' Maggie are tough, an' so are you."

I grinned as I took my own towel from around my body and started briskly rubbing down my wet limbs. "And don't you forget it."

We changed into fresh clothes in the bathroom, having brought them before hand so that we didn't have to make mad, naked dashes to our cells. I was pulling my ponytail through my cap when Daryl spun me around, roughly pressed his lips to mine and growled, "be _careful._ "

I reassured him with kisses that I would be and then with words that both me, and the girls would have each other's backs. I tried to pull away first, but then the kisses got aggressive and desperate and I had to physically _wrench_ myself away with a groan. "I fucking hate runs," I muttered darkly and Daryl snorted.

After that, we went to the library where Rick was pouring over his map of marked spots, crossing out where we had already scavenged, and Hershel was writing a list of the things we needed. Carol said she was ready but Maggie said she needed a shower.

I threw her an apologetic look as she was leaving and she glared at me. "We find any condoms out there, I get first dibs," she whispered in my ear.

Rolling my eyes as she left, I moved over to the table to listen in on plans until Maggie got back. She had showered alone since Glenn was on watch and with the water cold, she was barely fifteen minutes before she was back by my side not occupied by Daryl.

"You ready?" Carol asked us both as Maggie bent her head next to mine.

We both looked up, but I answered. "Yeah. You?"

Carol nodded and we made a move to go, Rick, Hershel and Daryl trailing behind us when Beth came in, holding Judith to her chest. "Hey," she greeted us. "I wanna talk to y'all."

We retreated back into the library to give her space to get in and stand around the table. Beth took a deep breath like she was steeling herself and I knew what she was going to say even before it came out of her mouth: "I wanna come on the run today."

"No," Rick and Maggie said simultaneously.

I rolled my eyes at the pair of them.

"Please!" Beth hollered. "I can handle it, I know I can."

"You ain't even had any weapons trainin', Beth," Daryl said and I shot him a glare.

He shrugged back at me. "She ain't," he defended.

"She's old enough to raise a damn baby, but she can't come on a run with us three?" I asked in part to Rick. "Remember what you said? _This_ is how you say thank you," I implored him. "She isn't going to be young forever, Rick."

I didn't know why I was fighting so hard for this. I liked Beth and I hated the fact that she was so undermined, but I didn't need to get involved like this. I still did, because she needed this run. She would go crazy in this prison if she didn't get out soon. Just because she didn't have training didn't mean she was a burden.

"Ain't my call. Hershel?" Rick asked, turning to face Hershel.

Beth glanced over at him too and I cringed a little because her big blue eyes made her look so young, which wouldn't help her case. "Please, daddy?"

Hershel seemed to be floundering and Maggie stepped in. "I'll watch her, daddy. You know I will."

I raised my eyebrow in surprise. "What changed your mind?"

Maggie glanced at me and then her younger sister with a tiny smile curling her lips. "Ain't 'bout keeping her safe against the walkers. It's about lookin' afta her. It's where you went wrong."

A punch to the gut, that was what I was feeling. I swallowed the ball that appeared in my throat and pressed my hand behind me to Daryl's stomach, where he had stepped forward to shoot Maggie down. She wasn't trying to be horrible, she was just blunt. I'd spent enough time with her now, talking about where I went wrong with Fae to understand what she was saying. It wasn't about preventing her death or putting food and water in her belly. It was about making her flourish and continuing to keep her on the path of becoming a young woman.

Instead, I had babied and panicked Fae. Turned her into me. Half mad, and paranoid and barely alive, just functioning. Surviving. It was what I thought Rick was doing to Carl in the beginning: trying to baby him. Trying to pretend that the walkers weren't around and that the world hadn't gone to shit. But he wasn't doing that. He was getting him up to tend to crops, look after animals. To play with his little sister; to put his gun down.

To be the man that he was meant to be.

I nodded in the end, the ball leaving my throat as I looked over to Rick and Hershel. "Let her come. We'll look after each other, all of us."

"We will," Carol confirmed, looking to Daryl.

Jealousy bit my gut but I smoothed it away. I liked Carol, and I loved Daryl, and they loved each other. They were best friends. I couldn't change that. I _wouldn't_ change that. For one reason or another, they had a strong bond and they needed each other. Hershel and Rick finally relented, and I didn't know Daryl's opinions other than the one about her lack of training, because he didn't voice any others. We left after that, with a list, four backpacks and a beaming Beth. We all crammed into one car, with Maggie in the driver's seat, Beth in the passenger and me and Carol in the back.

Daryl rode out behind us on the bike but didn't follow our route, because he was going hunting, so we split ways and carried on going. We had to drive for a while because most of the surrounding area had been picked clean. Maggie was hoping that a shopping strip hadn't been too badly scavenged, so that was our first choice and our second was to keep going. Half way there, Carol started giggling and when we asked her what was so funny we had to ask twice because she wouldn't stop. Finally, she said that she had only just realised that this meant there were no women left in the prison, and so how were the men going to cope?

We all laughed at that, but then Beth got a little quiet and I wondered if she was feeling guilty, for leaving Judith. It took nearly two hours to get to where we wanted, but for the moment it was worth it because the strip was still standing. We just didn't know what, if anything was left inside. Both in terms of walkers and supplies, but there was simple hope in the fact that it wasn't gone. The only problem was, as much as we didn't know about the conditions on the inside, we could quite clearly see the conditions on the outside, and it wasn't very hopeful.

"There's so many of 'em," Beth whispered.

I noticed that Maggie glanced over at her a little panicked, perhaps at Beth's breathy tone, like she didn't want her to get overwhelmed and put us in danger. "We can take 'em," she told her sister.

"Of course we can," Carol reassured from next to me.

"And I only just showered this morning. I'm going to get covered in gross shit," I groaned, trying to inject a little laughter and a little less doom.

It worked.

Beth snorted and Maggie glanced back at me with a glare that made Glenn's smile drop in less than a second, any time that she used it on him. "Hope it was a hot one."

"Steaming." I grinned and licked my lips.

She wrinkled her nose. "You're disgustin'."

"You can talk."

"Guys!" Beth suddenly snapped. "They're comin'."

Mine and Maggie's attention turned to the walkers outside, who now seemed to notice us and were making their way over. "We need to get out before they surround us," Carol advised.

"We need a plan before we get out," Maggie disagreed.

"We don't have time," I muttered, eyeing the walkers. "They're getting closer."

"Carol's right, come on!" Beth huffed and threw her door open.

"Beth!" Maggie screeched, scrambling to get out.

Carol and me tumbled out after them. Beth darted off to a spot she must have thought was safe, dodging walkers instead of fighting them. She was light and fast, so that was really her only defence. Maggie went after her and just as both me and Carol went to follow, we got cut off from them and each other, by a wall of walkers. My knife went straight into the forehead of someone who used to be a young girl, sending her down to the floor and got stuck for a minute, until I had to press my boot down on its skull and yank.

It cost me precious seconds I didn't have because as I clambered up from my knees, a walker hauled its stinking body against me, shoving me so that I tumbled against the car. I grunted at the impact, pushing back against the weight and it's snapping teeth. I didn't know what had happened to this one, but its stomach was torn open, what was left of its intestines swinging against my knees. I bared my teeth in the hopes that I wasn't sick and tried to wrangle my knife hand free. I physically couldn't because then I would provide an opening to being bitten. I let out a little scream instead, shoving the walker hard against ones behind it.

They all tumbled down and I jumped over them, chest heaving, palms stinging from the fall and eyes flickering left and right trying to find the other girls. I couldn't see them so I just ran instead, my vision locked on a door that I could hide behind until I could formulate a plan. Except I didn't make it. A door opened to my left and then I was being hauled inside, screaming.

"Shut up!" Maggie hissed in my ear and I stopped.

She slammed the door shut just as a pile of walkers landed against it, scratching and groaning. "Where's Beth and Carol?" I gasped, shoving my body against the door next to Maggie.

"I don't know!" She gritted, worry and frustration bleeding out of her and into the door where our body weight kept it closed.

I glanced around frantically, seeing that we were in what used to be a nail salon. "Help me, quick!" I said, indicating to a table.

Maggie nodded and I dived over to it, shoving and grunting as I pushed it towards the door. When it covered enough, Maggie ran around and helped. We pushed until it spanned the whole door and then we staggered away, panting.

"I'm gonna kill Beth," Maggie fumed.

My knees gave a little as I sat on down on a chair. Maggie moved over to the window that was shaded by blinds part way drawn and shoved her fingers between the slats to peer out. There was a buildup of walkers that were moaning in desperate hunger, their teeth clicking against the glass. "There's more now. Musta bin' someplace we couldn't see 'em."

"Are they attracted to anywhere else?" I asked. "That's where Carol and Beth will be."

Maggie shook her head and moved away from the window, flopping down onto a chair opposite mine. "Cain't see. But we need to find another way out, 'cause that one ain't gonna happen."

I groaned and tipped my head. "I fucking hate runs."


	9. Safe inside

"You ready?" Maggie asked firmly, eyes locked with mine.

I nodded back, just as firm. "Yeah. Let's do this."

"On three?"

I nodded again.

"One. Two. Three!"

Maggie pushed the door open hard. Hard enough that it ricocheted off the wall behind it, echoing so loud and for so long that I cringed, positive that it would draw more walkers. The sun was hot, and blinding, and for a split second I had to squint as it stabbed my eyeballs, raising my hand to brace against it.

Then we were running.

My lungs heaved and my ribs screamed in protest as we high-tailed our asses across the parking lot. We stopped for a dangerous, tense second to take in our surroundings and let the walkers catch our scent. It was nerve wracking; stomach clenching and all I wanted to do was grab Maggie and turn back so that we were safe inside, but the whole point was to get them to one part of the lot. If they didn't start moving, we were dead anyway. Then suddenly, we were running again.

"We're fucking crazy!" I yelled over my own panting.

Maggie's breath heaved as erratically as mine. "It was our best shot!" She screamed back.

I thought back to ten minutes ago when we had been trapped in the nail bar. We had gone hunting for another exit, and found one. Maggie had carefully eased open a door that led out to the back of the building and then pulled herself in as fast she could with a grim face. " _Shit load of walkers_ ," _she had answered my questioning gaze._

She said they were spread out, but there was a lot so if we stopped running for even a second too close to them, then there would be too many to fight and we would be quickly overwhelmed. We had to sprint through a large, fenced parking lot that didn't let out at the back to anywhere helpful, then the best we could hope for was to run the length of it and circle back to hop the fence and go around the side. I had asked why we couldn't just do that anyway, but she said there was too many blocking up the sides, so we needed to lead them to the very back of the car park to clear them out.

We had to be fast enough to circle back and get out of the side, then we had to slip past the walkers at the front of the nail bar, but that was a whole other problem to deal with after. We'd debated and tried to find other alternatives, but the clock was ticking. We didn't know where Beth and Carol were, or if they were even together. If they weren't, that was going to be another problem. Another problem to deal with later. Our current problems were the facts that we hadn't even started trying to scavenge the items on our list, and daylight was wasting. We still had two hours to drive back, and if we were gone too long, the others would panic.

With us girls out here, Daryl would be squirming in his seat, Rick and Glenn too. They would get paranoid and erratic, and come after us. With good intentions, but ultimately because they were worried, and they were men, and we were women, which meant that we couldn't truly take care of ourselves. The apocalypse was liberating in many ways, but males still felt like females needed their helping hand. That would leave Hershel, Carl and Judith the only ones in, and protecting the prison. If anything happened, Hershel and Carl wouldn't be able to protect it, themselves or Judith.

So, overall, we had to get out of here and fast. We had to get the other two, get the supplies we needed, and start the drive home before the guys even began to worry. Which was great when you laid it out like simple bullet point problems but the reality was so much more complex. Which I remembered quite startlingly as Maggie's arm linked together with mine, to keep each other going as we ran blindly. When we finally reached the back of the car park, we stopped to catch our breaths.

This was the hard part. We had to stay right at the back, to lead the walkers back here and clear the sides. Problem was, we needed to stay here to draw them to our scent but also start running again before too many converged, and we created our own death trap. So we waited in antsy anticipation as the walkers moaned and shuffled over to us, eager hands outstretched.

"Now?" I asked desperately, still panting.

"Wait," Maggie hissed.

"Fuck, Mags. We're going to die if we stand here any longer!"

"Wait!" Maggie wheezed again, straightening up from where she was hunched over her knees.

"Okay," I ground out through clenched teeth.

I looked back out at the walkers who were getting steadily closer, nearly on us at that point, but the sides were clear.

Just as I noticed, Maggie hooked arms with me again. "Now!"

We were suddenly running once again, way before my chest was ready to and it hurt like a mother fucking bitch. We skirted them as best as we could but there was just so many, packed together like sardines now that we had led them to us. We had to stab and slash and fight our way through them, panting and dizzy and breathless. By the time that we emerged through the other side of the walkers, and made it to the fence, the herd we had created had all turned to follow us and were more than half way back.

"Quick!" Maggie grabbed my hand, pressing blood and brains between our palms.

The gate was padlocked. Whoever had done it had most likely thought it would keep out the walkers, in the beginning, or keep them in from the looks of it. They probably hadn't known that you didn't have to be bitten to turn. Regardless, we couldn't bust it, and we didn't try. We couldn't waste the time. Instead, we shoved wheelie bins against it and climbed. Maggie went up first and then she hoisted me up with a strangled grunt. We had just a split second to see what was happening in front and behind the fence before we jumped down into an alleyway, shoving the bins away and sending some walkers tumbling.

Our timing was perfect, because the minute we landed, jarring our ankles, the walkers behind the fence smacked into the wood, groaning and spreading their stink. We only allowed ourselves a minute. A minute to gulp water, and slump breathless against the fence, covered in blood; gore, and all sorts of shit.

"You ready?" Maggie asked, putting away her water bottle.

I nodded, putting away my own quickly. The sound of the walkers behind us was going to draw the attention of the walkers at the front of the nail bar. Then we really would be trapped, and then dead. Which, depressingly, was the best case scenario. Worst case was that their combined weight would take down the fence, and therefore _us_ to the floor. Trapped, and then eaten alive. I swallowed the bile that rose in the back of my throat at the thought. It didn't matter how many times I got caught in these situations, how many times I was faced with my own death, and the people's that I cared about, it still scared the shit out of me. Still made my blood run cold, and my palms sweat.

We gripped hands again, holding on that bit tighter because blood and gore made them slippery. "Where to now?" I whispered as we snuck up the alley, our knives raised in our free hands.

"There's an' indoor market couple doors down. I think Carol and Beth would be there. Most of our supplies would be in a place like that," Maggie whispered back.

We inched, tiptoed, and sprinted in equal measures. Down the alley, across the front, down the side of the next building and then behind. Taking out more walkers as we went, getting covered in more brains and blood, flesh and gore. Then we were at the side of the indoor market. We knew it would be big inside, enough to be dangerous. We just had to hope that the other two had cleared it. If they were there. The door was open and the front panel smashed, but it didn't look like it had been smashed recently, and there were no other indications of life showing through.

It was a very real possibility that Carol and Beth weren't there at all, but we had no other choice than to slip inside. Usually, we would bang around before going into somewhere so big, but we couldn't risk getting the attention of the other walkers still at the nail bar, and no doubt all up and down the strip. Our chests were still heaving as we gently closed the door behind us, and our breathing was far too loud for how quiet we needed to be. Nothing much could be done about it, so we just kept our knives raised and turned to face the inside of the building.

It was barely touched from what I could tell myself, and the only shop fronts I could see from the door was a phone repair shop and another nail bar, which were of no use to us, and wouldn't have been to the girls if they had come in here.

"Beth? Carol?" Maggie whispered under her breath.

We began tiptoeing into the dimness, the only light available to us the fading sun struggling to poke its rays through the smashed pane of glass in the door. We passed the phone repair and the nail bar, then we came across a store that was marketed for pets. I glanced around almost without thought until my eyes caught onto upturned contents of dry dog food. Sammy. My big, golden retriever. My gut churned just thinking his name. We'd had Sammy since I was thirteen and Fae was four. When we went on holiday to Georgia -not even a week before the world went to shit- we left him with my dad.

He'd divorced my mom when I was nine and my mom was pregnant with Fae, and so we lost contact until I was eleven, and Fae was two. When we all got back in touch, he and my mom had organised a schedule so that we would go there on every other weekend, and part way through the summer holidays. They unanimously decided that they would maintain a friendship, for the sake of me and Fae. Almost hysterically, they become best friends after that decision; turned to each other for everything.

They never got back together, but it was okay because me and Fae never really felt that they were apart. Dad was over at our house all the time when we weren't at his on the weekends, and he was there for every occasion: Christmas, birthdays, Halloween, Easter and anything else that he could find a reason to be there for. I was pretty sure that he and my mom fell back in love along the way because they never dated anyone else, but they never got back together either. I thought about them often: him and Sammy. If they were maybe, quite possibly alive.

Sammy had been old, but my dad would have looked after him. He was tough, he could have survived. They both could. Except sometimes, when I let myself think about it, the _possibility_ that they were alive, over there, in England, I wondered if it wouldn't be better: for them to be dead. To at least convince myself that they were, and to stop holding on to that traitorous coil of hope. Because it wouldn't make a difference, them being alive. Anyone of them. I would never see them again. Not my dad; not Sammy. Not any of my family. My uncles and their wives; my cousins. I would never see my home again.

My bedroom that I had left upside down, everything pulled out to pack for the holiday because I had left it all last minute. I wondered about it sometimes. When I thought about who I used to be and what I left behind. Thought about the things and the people I would never have the closure for. Was my room how I left it? Was dust gathered on all my things, frozen in time? Or did someone go through my items, to scavenge? Did they open my memory box and see my families faces, see _my_ face, and wonder who I was? Wonder what that dead girl's name was? Did they sleep in my bed? Board up my windows and doors, trying to stay safe another night?

Did my family ever go through there? My dad? Was it him who boarded up the windows and doors? Or did he, and my family just take personal mementoes, and then keep on their travels? I drove myself mad, wondering. When I couldn't sleep at night or I saw things like this. A brief look into a life long gone, a life lived by a girl long dead. I turned my face away from the dog food because I needed to think of the people right here and now, the people that were alive and needed me. Not my ghosts. Not people who were there, before and not people who may still be there now, forever unreachable.

They were always with me anyway.

Maggie caught my attention with a hand signal as she walked past the pet place and into a small shoe shop. "Beth? Carol?" She whispered again.

There was no answer so we glanced around at the shoes toppled across display cases and the floor, money littered amongst them and the register open, as if the owner had taken all their money and left. I would have snorted if I could have risked the sound. Such a human thing to do: grab the money and not the things you really needed.

Like shoes.

We both bent to search through them for boots. There were loads of feminine flats and stunning high heels, named trainers that I would have worn once when I was another girl. But now all that mattered were boots. Rain, shine, snow, sleet, anything. If you were walking, running for your life, or out all day scavenging then you were going to need them. There were quite a few pairs but the sizes were either too big or too small. I managed to find some knee highs that I liked and were only one size too big so I squished them in my backpack. I would grow into them.

Maggie seemed to find some she liked too, and I didn't know if they fit her or not but she put them away in her own backpack. "Come on," she whispered.

We continued to pick through the market. It stretched far back and housed loads of small stores. Most of them things we couldn't make use of: makeup shops, and what used to be hairdressers. A few café's but all the food was rotten and spoiled: nothing to take. I imagined some would have had non-perishables, but someone had already cleaned them out.

We finally came across a small shop, where we found them. "There you are!" Maggie hissed.

Beth spun around on her ankles, crouched where she was piling food into her backpack. Carol had been on watch, and the minute she saw us she blew out a big breath of relief. "Thank God."

"Beth, I vouched for you to come today and then you act like that!" Maggie whisper-hissed, bending down to help Beth pack cans away, but it was clear that she was relieved.

"M'sorry," Beth whispered back, and she did look sheepish. "Carol already had a go at me."

"I did not have a go," Carol said, looking affronted.

"You should have," Maggie muttered darkly, standing up again.

"Did you guys get everything off the list?" I asked.

They both nodded. "What we could find. Some cans, and Judith's things. Could only find formula and bottles, no clothes. Some batteries and that's it. No guns around. No gas, and no pharmacy or drug store of any kind," Carol answered.

Maggie nodded briskly, pulling open their bags and taking mine to even it out across the four of us. "That'll do. We ain't desperate for meds yet, anyhow."

"You look like you got in a mess," Beth said after a small bout of silence.

"Shit load of walkers around," I answered, cringing at the state of myself.

"We gonna get out? They still by the car?" She asked.

I nodded. "Most of them are at the nail bar me and Maggie got trapped in. Only a few stragglers. We'll get them and get away before any more can get to us."

"We best get going then," Carol said, taking her backpack.

I took mine and the sisters shouldered theirs too. "Let's go."

We picked through the market once more and since we had the room in the backpacks I decided to go into the makeup shop. They had some razors that I took, and some tweezers that I desperately needed. I piled in some lotions too, which wasn't a necessity but it didn't hurt to have soft skin. Made me feel more female, and I knew Daryl liked it. I smothered a grin at the thought of him because we weren't free of the danger yet. It was getting dark out now, and we didn't need to be adding that to our list of problems in getting to the car.

We slipped carefully out of the indoor market, Carol getting to the front and Maggie and me going to the sides while Beth hung back. I didn't want to baby her but the way she had acted earlier was irresponsible. I understood Maggie's anger. I had vouched for her too, and she had disappointed me. I knew she didn't intend to put us in danger, and maybe it was our faults for not prepping her better, but she still should have known better than to go running off on her own. Especially with barely any knowledge on how to stab walkers either.

By some fucking miracle, we made it back to the car without drama, only having to silently kill five walkers to make it there too. We all slithered in, fast and silent as we could before Maggie turned the engine. Every walker around turned at the noise and the lights.

I cringed. "Lights, Mags."

"Shit, sorry," Maggie muttered, turning the lights off and speeding out.

I let out a breath of relief, sinking back into the seat, boneless. All we had to do now was get through the two-hour drive home, without drama, and then we would all be safe inside.


	10. It's the little things

I slept through most of the drive home, and when I woke it was quiet, the other women in the car silent, and so I was for the rest of the ride too. Before long, we were back and the car was being let in the gates by Rick and Glenn's efforts. I unclipped my seatbelt and sat up, my fingers resting on the door handle to pull it open when Maggie rolled to a stop, except my clothes were so covered in the crap that come from killing walkers, that they nearly got torn trying to lift up from the seat, having stuck to the leather and I was yanked back for a moment.

When I was finally free, I reached for the door again, but it opened before I could get release it. I was only gifted a second's glimpse of Daryl's arms before they hauled me out. I squeaked with surprise as he picked me up, my legs automatically winding around his waist. This was different. Regardless, it felt good, being wrapped up in his arms. Safe. Something had come loose and started trembling deep in my belly ever since I had seen that bag of dog food, and in that moment Daryl solidified it, grounded me.

I felt as fragile as blown glass, more than I realised on the way home, having slept through it, but now that I was here I felt like I was slowly cracking, coming apart beneath his fingers. Like if he didn't hold all the pieces of me together I would explode into fragmented dust that flew in the wind to places beyond this world. So, I basked in the strength he provided me -needed it almost- was glad that this was the moment he had decided to provide me with it, but my stomach still managed to perform all sorts of acrobatics because of the very glaring fact that we were out front and _in front_ of everyone.

We didn't really broadcast ourselves in front of them, so this was new. I believed we refrained from doing it in large part because there was nothing for us to broadcast. We hadn't labelled what we were doing, which mostly was fucking, and sharing a bed. We hung around together too when we had the spare time, but we didn't throw around the term 'boyfriend' or 'relationship.' The group knew that we were orbiting around each other, and maybe they pinned that down to the fact that Daryl had been the one to bring me in, as if he felt responsible for me.

I knew that they were aware of us fucking, so there were no misconceptions that he saw me as a little sister, or that I saw him as an older guardian in the way that a brother or father would be. Even still, this was big. This meant something. I was in love with Daryl, I was quite aware of that fact -alarmingly so- but Daryl may have just seen me as someone to fuck. There weren't many options for him, and maybe I was fresh meat, I wasn't sure. That was a very important question that I should have had the answer to already, but I wasn't brave enough to ask it.

He had shown me his back. That meant something. Something huge. All the little things he had done since I got to this prison meant something, and it was possible they meant a lot more than a fuck buddy. But I had to remember Daryl's character in all of this. He did things for other people because he cared, and most of the time they made him uncomfortable. I had already known he wasn't ready to show me his back when he had done it, and I had been in awe of him because of it, but it didn't change the very real fact that him doing that probably wasn't meant for me, wasn't intended as a token towards a developing relationship.

All those other things may have just been kindness, not interest. Except this. I couldn't explain this any other way. He was worried about me, and his tense muscles, tight jaw and anguished eyes meant something. He didn't act this way when Carol disappeared for a few hours. Didn't pick her up, and pull her out of cars and just manhandle her to his own satisfaction. Daryl wasn't like that. He didn't act like that. Which meant that this was big. That this was important. That I was important.

"Where the fuck you 'bin?" He asked gruffly into the cap covering my head.

"I'm here now, I'm safe," I reassured him, squeezing his neck.

He let me slide down, but I gripped his arm because I still felt fragile, uncertain. His behaviour was throwing me for a loop, and I had already felt so thin and small after seeing that dog food. I was terrified that if I unhooked my hands from where they were wrapped around his arm, I was going to crumple to the ground under the weight bearing down on me. Daryl glanced at me apprehensively, his face a mask of cool but his eyes a churning sea. He knew something was wrong, but in the middle of the group where I'm sure he was well aware that everyone was looking at him, I knew he didn't have the heart to ask me what it was.

He was so private, and his raw display of emotion was knocking him stupid, along with me too. He ducked his head and reached into the back of the car to get my pack, hiding from view. More than likely taking a moment to work through how to arrange his face and body, what to say to me that would explain his behaviour. When he come back out of hiding, he was pink in the face and he slammed the door hard.

"Wha' the fuck ya'll lookin' at?" He growled.

"Daryl," I whispered under my breath.

No one said anything in response, and instead took the smart option: a conversation that bloomed right out of nowhere. Daryl hooked his arm over my neck a little roughly, his fist catching my shoulder but I cuddled his side anyway, a smile stubbornly tugging at my mouth. He was just fucking amazing, this beautiful, private man. He didn't like to have weaknesses or things that could be taken from him, I had gathered that much, and we hadn't talked about where we stood, or what we were labelled as. Even still, he was putting it all on display: how much he cared. About me. For me. That must have been it, or was that just wishful thinking?

Except it was exactly like I had opened myself to him, when I told him about Fae, told him that I had let someone down, someone really important. That I hadn't been good enough. We did that, I thought. We showed each other things that others would dismiss, would take for fact and leave it there. I was confident in the knowledge that me and Daryl understood what it meant to say those little things because they were never really all that little. I could see that now. This little thing, as the group would make of it: Daryl coming out to show he was worried, to check I was safe, it wasn't little to him.

Glenn did it all the time for Maggie. Hershel for his girls, Rick for his kids. They wouldn't think anything of it, but it was important. Daryl had been overwhelmed and worried, enough so that he had put aside his usual cool demeanour and ripped me out of the car to wrap himself around me. To check that I was real and that I was okay. Such a little thing to the public eye, but such a large step for him. I already loved him. I already loved him so much it hurt my chest every time I looked at him, and yes, it was quite possible he was yet to join that road with me, but that didn't mean that I resented him for not loving me back; not truly knowing how.

He was enough, just him. He always was, and always would be. It was enough to share a bed, to share our skin and the moments we had to ourselves. We made our way inside together, as Maggie told Glenn what had happened on the run and everyone else listened in. Daryl departed from me only momentarily to squeeze Carol's shoulder. She gave him a smile, reassured him that she was okay and then he was back.

"Come eat," he said when we got inside the prison.

I shook my head, the thought of eating turning my stomach. I was cracking. "I fucking stink. You eat, I bet you haven't," I said with a squeeze of his hand.

"Ain't hungry."

"Me neither, and I need a shower." I squeezed his hand once more before I let go. "I'll meet you in ten. I promise."

Daryl looked like he wanted to protest, but he had obviously put too much on display today because he didn't. "Our cell, in a bit."

I smiled weakly and then nodded as I made my way to get clothes. 'Our cell' was really just Daryl's cell but I never slept in my own anymore, and my few things were in there. The night after we slept together he had taken the top bunk off and placed it next to the bottom one so it was almost a double bed. Maybe I should have felt like he was being presumptuous, but I liked it. He didn't make any additional comments about it, just silently made the offer. So I didn't talk about it either, didn't make it a big thing. Just silently brought my things in, and then it was 'our' cell.

For a few days, we just kind of slept next to each other in separate beds, or squished on to the one. Rarely did we come in here to hang out, it was simply a place to pass out after getting in late, or overnight shift or having sex. There was a clear dip in the middle where the bed bases didn't allow the mattresses to connect, so it seemed pointless to me, especially because the two beds took up every inch of space we had. But then Daryl had gone 'hunting' and he came back with a large pack of towels and sheets _,_ as well as some meat for the kitchen.

He'd been covered in all different shades of blood you could possibly think of, and a lot of dirt, which wasn't unusual for him, but he'd been sporting a black eye too. So, not a walker. Human. I didn't know how, or why, and I didn't know where he got the bedding and towels from. I also didn't ask. He didn't offer to tell me either, just stuffed some rolled up towels in the crack down the middle with hands hastily washed. Then he had stretched a double sheet over the two single bed rolls. We still had two single blankets -he hadn't come back with a larger one- and it was lumpy in the middle, where the towels were but we managed to sleep closer after that.

Made it into more of a bed, than just a space to pass out in. Made it ours. It's the little things. I made my way to the shower after I got some fresh clothes, and once I was there, I broke my first promise to Daryl. I wasn't ten minutes because when I got in, I cracked. I thought maybe I could have contained it, held it all in, but Daryl's sudden decision to show the group and me how much he cared had made sure that didn't happen. The joy had pushed inside, momentarily, leaving enough space for the crack to split wide open, until all the ugly leaked out of me in the form of great, big sobs.

They wrenched my shoulders and pounded my chest until I found myself curling up under the weight of them, curling up right on the floor. The spray turned icy as it rained down on my numb body. I couldn't find it in me to stop, couldn't breathe, couldn't even think straight. Couldn't _stop_ thinking. About my dad, and my family, my room, and if someone had gone through it. If they looked at my pictures and pitied me, the dead girl. About Sammy and if he had been in pain when he died, _if_ he had died, and that stupid fucking bag of dog food. About how it didn't matter.

How not one fucking thing mattered because I would never, ever know and it would always haunt me. It would haunt me forever, that constant not knowing that was driving me to insanity faster than months of loneliness ever had. More than Fae's mutilated face, and more than my mom's disappointed ghost. More than the promises I hadn't kept, and couldn't keep because I was too fucking _young._ More than anything at all was the not knowing that ripped me open and stitched me up all wrong until I couldn't walk, or talk or function, because the stitches were in the wrong place and I had to rip them open all over again.

When I finally reached our cell, my face felt puffy and my arms stung, where I had dug my nails into them. Daryl was stretched out across the bed, his arm behind his head and dressed only in his pants. The minute he saw me, saw the state that I was in: wet hair and the blood barely washed away under the t-shirt and pants, my presumably puffy face, my swollen, chewed lips, he shot forward. Seized me by the forearms with a grip I knew was tight but couldn't feel. "What happened? Whas' wrong?"

And that's all it took. To start up again. To sob ugly heaving sobs that I knew he didn't know how to handle and didn't have the first clue about how to stop. That I knew would mark us, like he had marked us earlier when he pulled me out of the car. We weren't labelled, we weren't anything, just fucking, but doing this changed everything. Fuck buddies didn't get overwhelmed with worry for each other, fuck buddies didn't show each other scars both on their skin and on their hearts. This could change us. A lot. Too much. This could have been the end for us, and even though I knew this and I tried so hard to contain it, I just couldn't stop.

I didn't and he was frozen, indecision all over his face and his muscles jumping under his skin. He didn't want to be here, didn't know how to deal with me, but he didn't leave. He wrapped me up in his arms and cradled me to his chest in a tight restraint like he was worried I would have a fit, and then he just held me. After what felt like an eternity, a millennium, I did stop. Not bit by bit, just abruptly stopped, and I told him in a kind of dazed, detached voice about all the things that were driving me crazy.

My house, my dog, my family. England. The not knowing. Fae's torn face, my ghosts. My ravaged mind, fucked up and warped and something I never, ever thought it could be. How different I was now, how different I was then, and he just listened, and held me. Didn't speak, didn't move. Just listened, and it was a balm. It wasn't any better, and the questions didn't go away. I still thought about my room, and my dog and that fucking bag of dog food but I felt a little more settled. A little more in my own skin, with control over my mind, so when he spoke after I finished, somehow, I just _knew_ what he would say.

He told me about his scars and the stories behind them. He told me about his childhood; about his big brother Merle, and his violent, abusive drunk of a father. He told me about his 'ma' and the fire that washed her body away, long after the spirit had been beaten out of her. He told me about the drugs that took Merle's teeth, and turned his eyes sunken, took most of Merle's freedom when he got locked up for dealing them. He told me about his waste of space life, before. How he followed Merle around and got caught in dumb situations, got roped into punch-ups and harassed to fuck a girl at a bar and prove that he was a man.

Told me about the very best day of his life when he had stood on his own two feet and said no more. Punched his daddy back when he was he was laying into him. Then how his front door had swung open and sunlight had poured into the shitty shack, bathing Merle in a halo of it. How he was rescued, and how they ran. Turned their backs on their daddy, and that shack, and their shitty life, and just drove. Lived, and fucked around, and drank shitty beer, and visited even shitter bars but had been good, because _no more_.

He told me everything, and it was bittersweet because he wasn't ready, like he hadn't been when he showed me his scars and the tattoos that were simply the physical evidence of his agony, of his anguish. He did everything he possibly could to help people, to look after them, and he couldn't do that this time. He couldn't help me. He couldn't tell me the answer to all my questions, and he couldn't ever give me the closure I needed. So he bared himself instead. He saw that I was cracked, and broken so he sliced open his veins and let his secrets bleed out.

Let the hurt, and the humiliation run like a thick, red river before my eyes so that I didn't have to go through it alone. He told me the things that churned through his brain, that made him sick to the stomach and gave him nightmares. Told me the things he was deeply ashamed of, things he had never admitted out loud. Like how he loved Merle so much, how he had worshipped the ground he walked on for so long, even though he was a dick. That Merle's death still burned his insides every day, still taunted him with guilt. Merle had been a good for nothing hillbilly who cared for nothing, and no one. Except for Daryl.

He took Daryl's lashings when they were boys. He came back for Daryl when the world ended, said _no more_. Merle had gotten him into some shit situations but hadn't he owed Merle everything? If Merle was a good for nothing piece of shit who could still look after Daryl, still come back for his baby brother, then what did that make Daryl? What did that say about Daryl if he couldn't even rescue his brother off of a damn roof? I didn't have his answers, much as he didn't have mine, so he continued on with his confessions: he admitted that he loved his daddy too. Despite what he did to him.

Despite how many times he punched him unconscious or undid his belt and split the skin of Daryl's back open. Cut ribbons across his hips and hauled him onto a shitty mattress, face down to fester and wallow in agony. Said, " _be a fuckin' man, ya dumb fuck_ ," and slammed the door, let him be swallowed by the darkness. He told me everything, and it wasn't the right time. It probably would have never been the right time. But he did it anyway, and it was done, and it helped. The little things were never quite little. My eyes grew heavy and my body sagged, and I slipped into a deep, soft sleep.

I didn't dream.


	11. More

My eyelids felt as if glue had dried between them when I cracked them open to a watery quality of light. Not quite dawn, but somewhere very close. I lay for a moment in silence, wondering what had woken me as my body thrummed. I was tired. Really truly exhausted and my body knew it, so I knew only external sounds would have woken me. I glanced groggily over my shoulder at Daryl, where he was spooned behind me. His eyes were open. I frowned, wondering if something was wrong and turned on my side to face him, slinging a leg over his hip. He didn't say anything, just spread his palm over my thigh that was still covered by my pants.

"What's wrong?" I whispered quietly as I rubbed my eyes.

He shook his head, his hair such a mess that it covered most of his face, as was usual for Daryl. "Nothin', woke up."

I nestled my head deeper into the pillow with a sigh. That wasn't uncommon for either of us. I was surprised we managed to get as much sleep as we did. Insomniac was common courtesy in this day and age. Even still, he looked like he had been awake for a while, pondering something or maybe hadn't slept at all, overthinking.

"What is it?" I asked again, stroking my fingers through his hair.

Daryl shrugged, his bare shoulder rolling. "You ever think 'bout... more?"

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"With me," he grunted, rolling now so that he was on his back, not looking at me.

I followed after him, my body sliding over his chest and resting there. "Do you?"

"Asked you first," he muttered.

"Makes a change," I joked, smiling.

He breathed a laugh, and I knew he was remembering the creek with me, " _ya asked me first."_

"Depends on what you mean, more what?" I whispered, but I knew.

"More… me. More than this." He expelled it in a breath, one that rose me where I was sprawled over him and brought me back down.

"This is enough," I answered honestly. "Has been since I met you." I raised my hand and swirled my fingers over his chest, skimming pockmarks that were near faded.

Daryl's body shuddered beneath mine as I passed them, but I kept going. "What about you? Remember you said you were no good at this. What were you thinking?"

He shrugged again but there was more effort to it as he fought the tremors I was causing. "You're pretty, an' young, an' I's never gonna be 'nough for you, I wanted ya to know."

My lips twisted. "You're enough. I promise."

He nodded, and his hand found movement again as his fingers stroked my thigh. "Missed your skin. Couldn' sleep."

I laughed breathlessly. "You sound addicted, Mr Dixon." But I shimmed my pants off anyway.

Daryl's hand fell back to the skin of my thigh and his breath flowed out of him, soft and almost relieved. "M'too old for you," he murmured after a moment, watching his thick fingers draw circles.

"No, you're not," I whispered fiercely. "You're enough. Just you. Nothing more."

His throat bobbed where his face was tipped to the ceiling. "I jus' a fuck to you?"

I laughed. "You're good, but not that good. I like you. I like who you are. I like who are you to other people, how you look after them."

He scoffed, his throat flooding red but his face tipped down to me. "You ain't jus' a fuck."

I swallowed at the intensity in his eyes. "I know, now."

His hand tightened on my thigh and my spine stretched, pressing my body against him. "We can _still_ fuck though," I whispered with a smile.

Daryl's mouth twitched, stringing itself into a smirk. I smirked back, my body rolling right over his until my thighs fell onto either side of his hips. I rolled mine as I found a settled spot and Daryl's chest expanded, no sound from his mouth but everything in his eyes. He wanted me, and I was never as turned on as I was when Daryl Dixon wanted to fuck me. His hands had settled on my hips, fingers spanning until they met each other beneath my belly button. Now they dipped, spreading down to pull my underwear to the side and expose me to the cool air.

I swallowed softly, a whimper trapped in my throat as I tilted my hips back and offered everything to him. His forefinger slid down to press against my clit and I gasped breathlessly. He hummed back at me, the rough pad of his finger swirling once, twice and then twice more as I jerked and withered and gasped above him. Daryl's mouth twitched again and his finger fell away, his hands going back to the fabric settled on my hips and tugging. The whimper finally escaped my throat as I lifted my knees and helped him push my underwear off each leg, leaving me with nothing but my t-shirt on.

It wasn't all that big and certainly didn't cover the newly exposed part of me. Daryl growled as he usually did when his cock was beginning to stir, and just knowing that caused a flood of arousal to surge through me. His hands became frantic as they gripped my ass cheeks and tugged me upwards, up his chest until I had to rearrange my legs to follow.

"Daryl, wha- _Fuck_."

A laugh, directly against my clit where his lips were latched and sucking. I let out a throaty moan, my head falling back between my shoulders and my thighs trembling around Daryl's head. _Wow._ This was new. This was amazing. My hips rolled against his face where his tongue worked against my clit, his hands holding me tight. I reached behind me, gasping, my hand pushing into the waistband of his pants and tugging roughly. He grunted against my clit and more juices pulsed out of me, soaking his chin.

Breathless, I worked the fabric until his cock fell hot and hard into my hand. His groan was deeper now, building up and through me, into my own throat, and looping back out of my mouth. His hands tugged on my hips again, pulling my bundle of nerves out of his mouth but my hand stayed wrapped around him, very lazily moving. He kept pushing me down his body the way he had pulled me up until I was back in his lap. I smirked as his clumsy hands pushed mine away from his cock but it slipped from my mouth as he used the head to rub my clit.

" _God_ , Daryl," I whispered, grinding my hips back against him.

His answer was another groan and his hand on my hip as his other kept his cock rubbing against me. "Tell me," he gasped suddenly.

My head fell forward and my hips continued to roll as I tried to push his cock into me. "What? Tell you what?"

"You want my cock," his answer was a husked out whisper that made my clit throb.

"You know I do," I gasped. "Please, Daryl."

"Say it," he grunted, his cock moving harder against my clit.

My legs trembled and my heart raced in my throat. "Daryl, please, I'm… I want… Please!"

" _Say it,"_ he hissed and my legs shook harder.

"I want your fucking cock, please!" I sobbed, just as my orgasm crested.

He picked me up by the hips and shoved me down on him, catching the end of my orgasm and expanding it outwards until it consumed my whole body. A scream worked its way up my throat, as my nerves flooded with hot lava that continuously pooled between my thighs where Daryl's cock fucked through the flutterings of my inner walls, and his hand clamped over my mouth.

I bit him hard enough to scar.

* * *

"Dani, wake up…. Dani."

I jerked awake, turning to look over my shoulder at Daryl, who I thought had called me awake. He was fast asleep, the blanket pulled up to his chin. I turned the other way, to find the voice that had woken me, and saw that Maggie was hovering over the bed, her face painted a deep red and gold in the dawn just beginning to poke through the thin blanket over the bars.

"Your turn for watch," she whispered. "You didn't come out."

"Sorry, Mags," I whispered.

"S'alright, long day yesterday," she excused me.

I glanced at Daryl again with a huff as I sat up, knowing he wasn't sleeping. He would have woken up the minute Maggie's toes pressed against the concrete in our cell. That was why the blanket was pulled up to his chin: so that Maggie didn't _see._ As I pulled the blanket back, I remembered I was panty-less, and flushed, hunting for them. Maggie pointedly looked away as I slipped both them, and my pants on once I had found them and then stood up to button them before I sat back down again to put my boots on.

Grabbing my coat when they were laced up, I zipped it up to my throat and then shuffled out. Maggie went to bed while I left the prison, taking off to the watch tower. It was empty when I got up there and I grimaced. Maggie shouldn't have had to come and get me out of bed. It was a known rule that you swapped shifts whilst in the tower. That way, there was never any time that someone wasn't on guard. Maggie's day had been as long as mine yesterday, and she still took the overnight watch. I'd had an emotional night, and then two intense orgasms, and I was paying for it, but I needed to fix up.

Stop being so soft. Stop letting myself get lost in the illusion of walls and Daryl's arms, in worrying about mine and Daryl's label. Life was good on the inside, admittedly, but the outside was still happening. There were still walkers trying to take down the fence, still people who may turn up on any given day. I shrugged off my tiredness, pressed my knuckles into my eyes to wake up and gripped the rifle more securely. I had lost my gun when the ceiling came down on me in that store, so I now had a replacement, but I'd never handled a rifle before I got here.

Rick had shown me how to use it when I first started taking watches, but I still wasn't very comfortable with it. The morning was relatively silent, as it usually was on watch. But that was more than okay because anything else would have meant some bad shit was going down. Daryl brought me breakfast when he was up. We talked for a little bit -as much as Daryl does in the way of talking- and then he pressed a kiss to my forehead and left to hunt. My shift was meant to be swapped at noon with Carl, but Rick called me down an hour or so before it rolled around.

I frowned in puzzlement but went down anyway, leaving the rifle because it was designated to the watch tower. I dipped my fingers into the back of my jeans for my new gun and held it before me anyway, just in case. The others seemed to be coming out too, and we waited around without Rick really telling us what was going on, until Daryl came back through the gate nearly an hour later, carrying some squirrels by their bushy tails. Carol and Glenn got the gates to let him in, and then we all converged back into the circle Rick had made of us while I put my gun away, no danger present.

When he could see we were all there, he passed Judith along to Beth and placed a hand on his holster, his usual sign that he was about to go into speech mode. "I called y'all out here to talk, 'cause I have some important things I wanna discuss," he began.

No one spoke in response to this, so he continued. "We've done a lot of really good stuff since we took the prison. We got the blocks cleared and fences reinforced; we're pretty stocked up on supplies. We got the crops thanks to Hershel, and the animals thanks to Daryl, Glenn. But winter's comin' an' it got me thinkin' about how we spent it on the road."

I chewed my lip in silence because I hadn't been with them at that point. Beth briefly mentioned that they had been travelling before they got the prison, but I didn't realise it had been all winter. With a pregnant Lori too, how had they survived? I remembered my first winter. The first time I had been truly cold since I got to Georgia. The snow had nearly made the world look pretty again. The walkers were snowed under in a lot of places, and while that was more dangerous because they were effectively hidden -until a rotten hand shot up from the earth to grip your ankle- it was also a beautiful illusion.

Pretending that there were no walkers, that people still lived and children still played in the snow, that school was closed. But even though it was a nice visual, the reality was fucking awful. Trying to find enough things to stock up on for the winter: solid boots, a big coat, hat, gloves, scarf. Food. Knowing I didn't have anything between myself and the cold but flimsy materials. Not walls, or doors or roofs. Not for long anyway, even if I managed to clear out a place. Frozen fingers and toes, chattering teeth and quaking muscles. The aching loneliness as the cold stripped my skin down to the bone and the very real fear that I would get frostbite.

The half delirious thoughts and images that I would have to cut something off. I still remembered the terror at night, shivering on the floor. The images in my mind of black toes that I would have to hack off, and bandage up, but with what bandage I wasn't sure because I didn't really have any to hand. The brutal facts that I was no doctor, that I would probably bleed out, and even if I didn't… having to learn to walk with fewer toes... or hold a knife with less fingers, no thumb... A death sentence. Other than all of that, the very basic need I suffered from was water.

Most of the creeks had frozen over by that point, and so the best I could really do was create a snowball and suck the water out of it, soaking my gloves. It was always a catch twenty-two. Stay hydrated or stay warm. Couldn't have both. I'd never wanted to die so much as I had that first winter. Everything was still so new, and raw. The loneliness, and my own grief, the insanity starting to creep up on me, the walkers. I'd faced one more winter after that, and this one would be my third one. I'd gotten better at surviving the cold months after my first go around, but I was so immensely thankful that I was in the prison for this one that I could have cried where I stood.

Rick was still talking, so I pulled my attention back from those miserable months to what he was saying. "There's still a lot of work to be done 'round here. More reinforcing on the fence, some sort of somethin' so that we can store Daryl's meat. Truth is, I think we need more people. We're runnin' ourselves thin tryina cover watches, and runs and clearin' the fence."

"What you saying, Rick, that we should start bringing people in?" Glenn asked with a frown.

There was a heavy silence, and then: "yeah, I am."

At the look presumably gracing everyone's face Rick sighed, rubbing the back of his hand across the sweat on his forehead. "Look, I know it's dangerous, and not long ago, I wouldn't have allowed it myself. But we took Dani in, and s'only done us good."

I flushed as varying people looked over at me with smiles. Thank God Rick kept talking. "I don't want this to just be a prison no more. I wanna take the bars off the cells, make doors. _Thick_ doors."

Maggie -though clearly still tired- glanced pointedly at me, and I had to smother a grin. Rick kept talking over our shared looks, listing the things he wanted, the things he needed to carry on. I listened with increasing attention, picturing each individual thing as he spoke, and the more things that came out of his mouth, the more I wanted it too.

"I wanna real kitchen and somewhere to eat outside when s'hot. I want more cars and stocked up gas. I wanna fully equipped infirmary and a nursery, toys even, 'case babies or kids come in. I just want _more_. S'not about surviving no more. It's time to start livin'. Start building a community and somewhere we can spend the rest of our lives. 'Cause this is as good as s'gonna get: the prison, and we gotta start now."

There was silence as we digested what he said, and then Hershel spoke. "Do you want us to go out and find people, Rick?"

Rick shrugged. "Maybe soon, if we can spare the people. If we sort that fence some more and can slack a little on takin' 'em out. But for now, we just don't turn no one away. No more killing."

I shivered because I had suspected that was happening. That Rick wasn't just sending people away, but taking them out because they were a threat. Because they could come back, try and take what we had, and hurt the people we loved. Somehow, I hadn't been one of them. I hadn't been shot dead. I was here, and I wasn't one of those people, or a walker, but one of these guys, a part of this group, in here. With Daryl. All because they gave me a chance.

"I agree," I finally spoke up, and Rick looked at me in surprise. "I could have been one of them. But I'm not, and now I'm here, and I'd do anything, for you guys."

I swallowed tightly after I said it because it was the first time I had said it out loud: how much they meant to me now. I had known it for a while; started letting them in bit by bit, or rather, they had all fallen in fairly quickly, and I had allowed it. Beth, who was stood next to me, grinned and squeezed my side with Judith sat on her other hip. I squeezed her back with a smile.

Rick nodded at me, a small smile curling along his own face. "Every time we panic 'bout letting people in, every time we second guess ourselves, 'cause I'm sure we will, we just look at Dani. We look at her, and we know how much we love her, and we know that we're makin' the right choice."

I had to look away after that because I was crying.


	12. Change

That was the day our lives changed. The day we decided to let people in, one a time, and it was like they knew: all those people out on the road. Because we started finding them everywhere. In stores when we were on a run, on the side of the road when we were coming back. They even started coming across the prison themselves, most of them injured and exhausted, and some of them healthy and vigorous, heavily armed and flourishing despite the new world. In almost no time at all, the prison was bursting with large clusters of actual, living people. New faces, and children, lives and minds to get reacquainted with.

We had all sorts of different people with us, with skills and talents that I thought had been beaten out of the human race. We had artists, who used berries to paint if we had them spare, and charcoal to sketch. Writers, who found pens and papers to write up their lives in so far, and paid memory to the people they had lost. Sometimes they even wrote bedtime stories specially requested for and by the kids. We had two doctors now: Chris, and Lucas, and even a celebrity in our midst. A model named Jenny who had been half way up the ladder to fame before the world ended, but had starred in a few music videos, so pretty much everyone knew her.

She was forever saying stupid shit that made me avoid her like the plague outside our doors. Things like: " _ugh, I miss acrylics_ ," and my personal favourite: " _if the world hadn't gone to shit I'd have so much money right now_." Despite looking at her and wondering how the hell she made it so far, we did have people with actual brains too: scientists, one woman: Daisy, and two men: Mark and Travis. They often spent their most wistful nights trying to work complex equations out or trying to make an order of the decay around us, pull it apart, dissect it and then replace it with an order that they could then understand.

Often they spoke of outbreaks and cures as the looted whisky was passed around and I would quietly listen in on them, wondering if they would be the end to all of this. Problem was they didn't seem to be able to decide amongst themselves, let alone with each other about the end to the walkers. One debated that there was a cure whilst two debated that there wasn't. "W _hen people die of cancer, can you bring them back? No, 'cause you can't bring people back to life_." A lot of me believed in that theory. We couldn't cure death, as a society we never could. When someone died, they just died and that was that.

" _This ain't cells killing the body. This is cells reawakening the_ brain _, cells that turn the spark back on. If we can't cure it, we could at least use it to cure other diseases_. C _ould be useful_."

" _Yes, but only the basic presence of life. There's no memory recognition, no greater intelligence, only a base hunger: to_ feed _, and no disgust at what they fuck their eating."_

That went on every time they fell into the same debate, and soon after I found myself wondering away from them and to quietly explore the other new people. Often I enjoyed watching humanity bloom again, but other times I would be hit hard with an unexpected wave of panic, much like the very first time I had walked up to the gates, three months ago. Often I would have to remind myself that they were still good people who deserved the luxuries we had just as much as we did. Things such as walls, fences and actual beds. Children deserved to sleep with full tummies and wake up happy, unafraid.

Men and women deserved time to flirt, and play and love. Couples deserved to spend real time together. It was hard, but they were good people. Admittedly, we had hiccups. There were the bad people too. The people that were too anxious, too panicky; couldn't settle. Was too afraid to go soft. Some people simply left, _"_ _thank you, but no thank you_." Too normal. Others would try and take what we had, take someone hostage to get it. We dealt with it, either way, sent the person back out with as many resources as we could provide, or took out the threat. But every time it was like a kick in the teeth when someone took our kindness for weakness.

Sometimes people were just too far gone, didn't want to be here; didn't want to be alive anymore, and now they had more options to die than being eaten. No one killed themselves inside the prison, because even in their darkest hour it seemed they had enough kindness to not leave us with that kind of threat. So it became this weird, sick, almost heroic thing after a few weeks of people doing it: taking themselves outside the gates, leading the walkers far out so that when they blew their brains out the walkers scattered. As if they were sacrificing themselves so that the fences didn't get destroyed by the walker build up.

Maybe that was even what they told themselves in the end: that their death was for the greater good; for the people that were trying to live. Who _wanted_ to live. No one could manage to stop them before they did it, either. The suicidal person would pretend to do something or other, past the gates, wait for whoever was on guard to shut them, and then do it, because they knew how long it took to get the gates open again; how long it took to beat back the walkers. You would never know until the person on watch hollered, " _we got another one_!"

And you couldn't even go out and get them, this person you knew, because the walkers pounced straight on to the fresh meat. It was exhausting, and emotional every time it happened, especially if they had left someone behind, and you had to be the one to tell that person or people. Sometimes you had barely even known the people who killed themselves, hadn't had the chance, but every time it was such a _waste._ There was so much life behind the prison walls now, but who was there to say there was anymore outside of them? We could have very well been the last ones left, we just didn't know.

Every time we lost someone, it was devastating for a thousand different reasons. Other than that though, Rick got his 'more.' With all the new hands, there were more people for watches, more people for runs and clearing the fence. Supplies were better because we could go further out, target bigger places, and the better the supplies the more we got done with them. A big home depot store meant we reinforced, and set up snares. Even put one right around the perimeter of the prison, and the woods enclosing it, in case anyone ever did try and take us over.

Daryl set up snares for his hunting, so he didn't have to spend so long tracking the game; then we put spikes all around the fences to try and alleviate the pressure on them. Some walkers still managed to worm through them, or ripped themselves open to get there, so we cut down trees and used them to support the chain link better, but we couldn't have done that if we hadn't scavenged the equipment. We got more gas and more cars, and so eventually we began driving further out, all the way to abandoned farms but Daryl made sure we never went to _that_ farm. Especially not with Carol.

Either way, the farms we did go to, we found a lot of animals each time, and so we started taking Hershel out with us in the end, since he was more available. Two doctors on hand really took the pressure off of him. He said most of the animals were too sick to save even with his best efforts, and some had died from starvation before we found them, or had a walker munching on them. But we did find some live ones: a goat, a few chickens, and a beautiful grey horse that the kids cooed over. We even found a stray dog who had curled up to die with two broken back legs, until Hershel saved him.

Carl had stayed with him throughout all his treatments, and quickly become best friends with him. Now he took him everywhere, although he still hadn't named him. Everyone just called him ' _boy_ ' and I didn't think we were going to progress any further than that. We got that infirmary and nursery set up too, and we now had a guy, Eugene, who was positive that he could build a generator. Once that was in progress, we could have a freezer to keep Daryl's meat, and a fridge to store medicines. There was even an outdoor area for food now, but Rick was still trying to find some grills for it.

Daryl had been a quiet, solid presence throughout all the change, all the new people. He did what Rick asked, looked after people and they learned to love him fairly quickly. Until one day, having not long gotten in from a run where he found a survivalist bunker, he turned and nudged Rick at the dinner table. I had been seated to his right and Rick to his left, so we both turned at the same time.

 _He spoke quickly, like he expected to be laughed at, and therefore wanted it over as soon as he could._ _"_ _I wanna train sum people_."

" _In what?"_

_"_ _Shootin' the bow."_

_"_ _Yeah?"_

_"_ _Yeah. That guy blew his fuckin' brains out back there. Fucker probably didn't know bein' alone would fuck him up so much. Had a lotta shit, lotta guns, food, medicine, but he got two bows 'swell. Think I should train whoever wants to be trained."_

_"_ _You can ask people, see who wants to have a go. Nothin' stoppin' you."_

With Rick's apparent permission, from that day, between helping around the prison, runs, watches, clearing the fence, hunting _and_ being with me, Daryl trained people. He even taught me a little, and I enjoyed it, but I didn't really take to it, didn't have the patience to stand still and aim. He taught Beth, though, and I loved him for it more than words could say. Rick joined him not long after a small group had gathered, clamouring to learn, in order to teach people to shoot. Often he mused about, " _the farm days,_ " and got this look in his eye, before he had to walk away for a moment.

The rest of us alternated teaching how to stab walkers, and humans alike, because apparently, you had to position yourself differently for each threat. I wouldn't have known: I had never killed another living human, so I could only teach how to stab walkers. We also had a guy come in who Rick knew, right from the beginning: Morgan, and he taught self-defense. The progress we managed to make in three months just with extra people, extra _enthusiastic_ people who wanted a life, was amazing. So many people that become precious, that become family.

A brother and sister: Sasha, and Tyrese. A couple: Rosita and Abraham, who came along with a straggler they found on the road: Eugene, who could make the generator. A few lone travellers, as I had been, once, such as Bob and Michonne. A little family: Tara; her sister, and her niece. As well as so many others. So much change. There were loads of babies and kids too. Enough that Rick had managed a small party for Judith's first birthday last week. There were even that many people that we'd had to tidy up more blocks and cells, and had to scavenge for more bedding on runs.

We were also in the process of making the inside more homely with curtains; bookshelves and books, rugs and squashy armchairs for a lounge that Maggie and Carol were in the middle of putting together. Plus Glenn and Rick were still in the process of removing bars and crafting doors for the cells, to make it more of a bedroom, but they were getting there. It was just so beautiful to see, all this _more_ that was happening around me, all this change, and in part, _because_ of me. Which was why I was grinning when I pulled into the prison gates, despite being covered in blood, and gore, and knowing that Daryl was going to have my ass because I was late.

As in, the next _night_ late. But I had warned him yesterday morning, before I left with Michonne, Sasha, Rosita and Abraham, that it was a possibility we would be longer than planned. He had wanted to come, but Rick had needed him to go hunting. With the extra people in the prison, his hauls needed to be bigger and trips had been more often, despite his snares. It wasn't as bad as it would have been if he didn't have them but he was too important to take with us when the meat was running low. So when the vote came to finally take on the hospital, he hadn't been included.

We had been going past this hospital for weeks, every time we travelled further for the farms. We knew that it was crawling with walkers and so it was more than likely that it hadn't been scavenged too badly, but even that wasn't a guarantee. It was a very real possibility that we would lose people, just to get in and find nothing, to then lose more people to get back out. We considered doing it and found a million reasons not to, and then we decided that the gamble would be worth it, for the things we could find in there. We were right.

It was absolutely crawling like we knew it would be and if Michonne hadn't been so goddamn amazing with that sword, we probably wouldn't have ever made it _in_ , let alone back _out_ with our haul and no losses. But we had us a _good_ haul. So many things to go into the infirmary. So much medicine that we hadn't needed as of yet, but definitely didn't hurt to have stocked up. We still had to go back with the trucks to get one of the beds, a gurney and a stretcher, and when we sorted that generator, we could get some really good electricals too, but we had done really well otherwise.

I was pulled back into reality as my car door opened, and Daryl was reaching inside for me. He picked me up and wrapped me around him like he had done months ago when I went on that run with Carol, Maggie and Beth. Things had been so different then, and most especially in that moment. The first moment that he truly showed me how much he cared. Aside from the man himself, the biggest difference was Beth. She had been almost childlike, how she acted then. She wasn't anymore. She was clever and reliable. A goddess, with her fierce blue eyes, and new hair. Her scars too.

Someone we brought it right at the start, someone too far gone, but not enough to want to die, had taken her hostage. Dragged her into the kitchen, where there had been chatter, and laughter until suddenly there wasn't. All the sound had gotten sucked right out of the room, except for a spoon that slipped between Maggie's numb fingers. The guy had a gun to Beth's head, and cuts across her face were bleeding hot and thick. At the time we couldn't see how deep the cuts were, but when we got her back and Maggie cleaned them; stitched them, with shaking hands, we knew they would scar.

 _Before that, though, it had been a tense silent minute, until Rick stepped forward very slowly, and very calmly, despite the quiver in his voice that said he was going to rip this guy to shreds._ " _Let a-go."_

_The man had frantically shaken his head, Beth whimpering under his arm where it was wrapped tight around her slim neck, and getting tighter as he raved at us: "she's meant to be fuckin' dead!"_

_Spit flew from his mouth and his face turned a dirty, splotched purple as he almost tried to convince us that he was telling the truth_. " _I saw her die in fuckin' front of me, man! I fuckin'_ seen _it! Seen 'em rip her fuckin' guts out. I begged 'em not to, I fuckin' shot 'em all, but I was too late! I was too fuckin' late!"_

We never did find out who he was talking about. Someone he cared about clearly, someone who had twisted him enough to want to put her down, believing she was a walker. It was Hershel that shot him. It was the reason the man's gun went off, in the end, releasing a bullet straight into Beth's brain. That day still gave me nightmares. Still made me sick when I remembered her blood arching into the air. Remembered it landing on her blonde locks, lit up by the sun. But I couldn't remember what I did in reaction to it, or where I was standing, what I was doing with my hands.

I just remembered Maggie's screams, and Daryl: _sobbing._ By some unbelievable miracle, Beth survived that shot. Even more of a miracle, she wasn't brain damaged from it either. Sometimes she forgot what she was doing, or I had to repeat myself because she was staring at me, but hadn't taken in what I had said. Other than that though, she was okay. Stronger for it. With a scar slashing across her cheekbone, her forehead, and a little star-crater above her eyebrow. Daryl had trained her after that, and she had seemed to be okay. The same, really. Until one morning, she just kind of wasn't.

She had arrived in the kitchen calmly, quietly, almost in exactly the same spot that she had been shot, and where Carol had scrubbed at the blood stains, turning her hands the same colour. Beth stood there and then she cut her hair right up to her chin in front of us with scissors no one had noticed.

 _All with a dazed sort of look in her eye, but with a firm voice, explaining why_. _"A_ _lways had long hair. Mama said it was too pretty to cut, didn' she Daddy?"_

_"_ _Yeah, Beth, she did._ _Why you cuttin' it now sweetheart?"_ _Maggie had asked when it became apparent that Hershel couldn't formulate words._

_"_ _S'always bin long. When we lost the farm, and Mama, and Shawn, Patricia, Otis, Jimmy. When… when I's shot," she had whispered thickly. "Time to be different. Time to be brand new."_

When she was done, the room was suspended in a shaky sort of silence until she blinked softly and very calmly left. Maggie had gotten her hair up, bending to her knees and cradling the blonde locks, gazing up at me with this _look_. The one that said she knew now, what I felt. What it felt like to lose a sister; to let her down. I would never get that out of my head either. As much as I would never forget Beth being shot, and then cutting her hair with that dazed look in her eye. Maggie cut her own hair later that night, and when Beth saw it, she simply fingered the short curls, smiled and told Maggie that she could be brand new too.

I'd cried for Beth the night that she was shot and I cried for her that night too, the night that they both cut their hair. Cried for the both of them. Even though she wasn't dead, and it hadn't really been a big deal. Except it _was._ She had survived, but she was different now. Harder, even if she was stronger. Daryl understood, he let me cry in his arms. That was another thing that was so different now: Daryl, and our relationship. After that night I had broken in the shower, told him about the bag of dog food, and then he had told me about his life, told me that I wasn't just a fuck. We got steadily comfier from there. More open, more labelled.

He told me more things, in drips and drabs. Small, happy memories that he treasured because they were so few and far between. The tail end of summer, the woods soaked in its warm light. The hard bite of winter, and the beauty he found in such a cruel world. About how if his ma had a bit of extra money she would buy him and Merle their very own tub of hot chocolate that they could share, and drink before school. Before they had to leave and be The Dixon Boys again. I told him about my home. About the day we had brought Sammy back, a birthday present for Fae. About birthdays and Christmases, and being a teenager. Talk the transitioned into relationships and I had only really had one, the boy I had lost my virginity to.

 _Very quietly, he had whispered,_ " _never had a girl,_ _'fore you_."

My face had split open on a grin and I had very, very nearly said 'I love you.' One night he had even just started laughing, which was rare, while we were wrapped together naked. When I asked what was so funny, he said he had just imagined Merle telling him something. I had to press him before he admitted what it was.

Which was this: " _way to go, baby bro. Way outta your fuckin' league, man_."

I had laughed at first until he had quietened into a sullen mood, and I knew something was wrong. I had waited him out until he admitted that he didn't have the first clue why I had looked at him. Why I wanted him, now or then, back at the creek.

" _Ain't the most good lookin' guy around an' you're a fuckin' liar if you say so, Dani_."

He'd been open with me that night, again, but more than he ever had been, even when he told me about his life, before. I hadn't wanted to ruin it so I just lay beside him and listened to everything he had to say. All the things he had wanted to tell me since the day he met me, all his thoughts and feelings. He never said, "I love you," and neither did I. We didn't have to. It was enough, what he had told me, the things he had told me. He'd given me more even though I had been satisfied with what we had.

It had been enough for me already, enough for me to fall in love with him. He wasn't any different the next day, in front of the others, but _we_ were different. He didn't act any more affectionate towards me, but that was when he started to get overwhelmed and when he allowed people to see it. When we lost someone, on the rare occasions that we did and when someone was being too good to him. When they told him how great his was, and how thankful they were that he had brought them into the prison.

If he had a close call, or if I did, he would just grab me up and wrap me around him, or sit me on his lap and clench me hard. As if I would ever want to run away. He wouldn't speak, and wouldn't tell me what was wrong until much later. He would just hold me and feel my weight and breathe. I let him; I loved him. So there had been so much change, so fast that it made me dizzy, but the biggest change, the best change, had been Daryl.

"I'm okay," I whispered now, soothingly into his ear, my arms looped around his neck. "I'm sorry I was gone so long."

Daryl grunted in my ear. "Knew I shoulda come. Ya always go missin' when I ain't with ya."

I snorted, leaning back to look at him. "Get over yourself, Dixon."

He made a sound low in his throat and kissed me hard, making my toes curl in my boots. Behind me, someone pretended to wretch and told us to get a room. Daryl pulled away and shot them a glare, whoever it was. It sounded like Michonne. I flipped them the bird behind my back and heard them snort.

Definitely Michonne.

Daryl's grip didn't loosen on me, so I didn't think he was going to put me down anytime soon. It was late anyway, so I whispered: "take me to bed," in his ear.

He did. Carried me all the way there, despite his pink ears when anyone laughed at our passing figures. We were one of the first ones to get a door, following Glenn and Maggie, so it was that he shut behind us, then slid the crude little lock he had made for it before he put me down on the edge of the bed. I slipped off my clothes, my skin covered in gore but so dry and stiff now that I barely noticed it. Daryl didn't seem to either because he lay on the bed and dragged me into his arms.

We just didn't care about stuff like that anymore. He was silent for a while as his other hand dropped to my thigh and gripped it, sending goose bumps skittering across my skin.

"We got any condoms?" I whispered as I tilted my head to look at him, because I hadn't seen him in far too long, and I needed to be close to him.

We didn't use them a lot, but we couldn't keep pushing it either.

The left side of his mouth kicked up, that little smirk that did stupid things to me. "Nah."

I huffed. "Don't look so damn happy about it."

Daryl scoffed and rolled until he was hovering over me. "Don't need 'em." His hands gripped my thighs, parted them, then pulled them up and over his hips.

I groaned a little in my throat. "Okay."


	13. Soft

Everything about Daryl tonight was soft.

His kisses, the way he held my face and my thighs. The lines of his body as they settled into mine. His mouth between my legs; his tongue on my clit. His fingers on my hips. Everything was so goddamn _soft._ So, I was soft too. Soft as I kissed his throat, and equally soft when I sucked his cock; when I licked him clean. That seemed to be what he wanted: soft, and slow, almost lazy tonight. I couldn't understand why. I liked it rough, and so did Daryl. It made me feel passionate and wanted, as if he was so desperate to get at me that he couldn't physically bother with patience.

Daryl liked it rough because he said he didn't know how to be slow, or gentle or even loving. I already knew that was a lie, but now I was quite sure because tonight was different. Our movements, our bodies; the way we moved our hips, the intensity in which we cummed. Everything was different. I couldn't pinpoint why and I couldn't understand the change. Perhaps it was simply because he had missed me, or wanted to switch things up. But I was sure it was more than that, deeper than that. I was sure that Daryl was trying to determine that I was really there, to really feel how alive I was beneath him.

Touch my skin, and watch the blood fill my cheeks, listen to my heart race. I did it often to him. Held on just a bit tighter or I sunk my teeth in deeper just to know he was really still with me. That I hadn't lost him to this cruel, relentless world where I had already lost so many people. He had been worried about me, I knew that. Worried enough that he had put his usual reservations aside and wrapped himself around me, in front of everyone. Again. So maybe it really was to ensure my safety, as he often did. But I'd had closer calls than the last two days in terms of not making it back to the prison.

A couple of months ago, we had both been out there alone, just us and with no other help available. Me, trapped under a piece of ceiling and injured. Him: unconscious. It was because of Daryl that we got home at all; because of him that I was in bed with him, night after night. It was entirely down to Daryl that I got patched up and that I had healed. The stitches had come out long ago and the cut on my leg was gone, even though my forehead had scarred, a scar that he always stroked. Did the fact that I was relatively healed make him forget how close to death I had come in that store? How close he come to it?

If he didn't have the strength to get that ceiling off of me, there was nothing else that could have been done. He could have gone back to the prison to get help, but anyone or anything could have gotten to me before he got back. Walkers primarily, loss of oxygen most likely, closely followed by blood loss. Maybe a combination between the three. So that brought me back to the question at hand: why was he being so soft tonight, and why was he patiently guiding me to be? I wasn't complaining, just curious. It was incredible. Sex with Daryl always was. The things I did with him, I had never done in all my life.

Never had the time, or found the right person. Daryl was different. Like when I was on overnight watch a few nights back, and even though he could have been warm in bed, he had come out to join me. We couldn't risk dividing our attention just to have sex, so Daryl had kept me turned outwards, rifle ready and dipped his hand into my jeans to stroke my clit. My knees had nearly buckled several times, but his larger body behind me kept me upright. He stroked and dipped, stroked and dipped over and over again, until my body hovered on the edge of orgasm.

Then he stopped. Waited for nearly ten minutes each time. Let me calm down, let my breathing slow and my legs stop shaking. Just kept his hand pressed to me inside my underwear, his fingers curled so that he wasn't touching anything that would or could set me off. Then he would start all over again. That went on for _hours_. I don't know how my body managed it. I don't know how _I_ managed it. He never let me cum, and he only took his hand from my jeans when Sasha come out to take watch. When I got him inside, I wasn't a bit tired. My whole body was trembling, a pulse between my legs and my nerve endings lit up.

As dawn broke across the sky, sleep was forgotten as we tore the clothes from each other's bodies. He threw me up the wall and pounded his cock into me so aggressively that I cum the minute he was inside me _and_ three times after that. No, I wasn't complaining, but I didn't understand. Even now he continued to handle me carefully -like I might shatter if he squeezed too hard- even though the morning after that night in the watch tower, I'd woken with dark bruises across my hips and inner thighs; across the nape of my neck. They had been the exact shape of his fingertips where he grabbed me tight and pumped his hips against mine.

He hadn't come off any lighter. Raw scratches across his shoulders and back, bite marks on his throat. Bite marks on my throat, come to think of it. I even still had bruises littering my body now, from the sex we had the night before I left for the hospital run. But despite my confusion, the softness was turning me into a puddle of goo as Daryl's body stretched over mine, my legs hooked over his hips and his face buried deep in the curve of my neck. His hands held my thighs soft, his fingers settling into my skin as if he had individual placeholders there, which by now, he almost certainly did.

I was so wet and hot that he was sliding in and out of me with ease, his pubic bone rubbing quick and soft against my exposed clit. The moans wouldn't stop pouring out of me, sweat clung to us both, pressing our skin together. Even though I didn't know why he was taking me so softly, it didn't change the fact that it felt so damn _good_. I'd already cum once when his tongue fluttered across my clit, soft as butterfly wings and again when he first pushed into my tight, hot inner walls. Now I was nearly there once more, and my body felt boneless. Time felt suspended and breathless. The room felt surreal around me, cast in a golden glow of candle flames.

They flickered over our bodies and threw erotic shadows against the walls, attacking me visually as my sense of touch was worked into overdrive. Everything was so hot, and so wet and so damn _soft_ that I don't think I could have formed my own name if someone had asked me to. Daryl didn't seem any more human that I felt. He wasn't as quiet in bed as you would think him to be, on first appearances. He groaned and panted, whispered dirty things in my ear about how good it felt, how tight I was. How good I felt milking his cock, and what my body did to him.

But not tonight. His lungs heaved against me and he breathed heavy in my ear, but he didn't talk or moan. He seemed as breathless as me, as suspended in this warm bubble as I was. Until he finally did speak, his voice like gravel in my ear that swept goosebumps across my skin. "Ya close?"

I laughed breathlessly, my legs tightening and my hips rolling slow beneath his. "I've cum twice, Daryl," I whispered. "Stop holding out."

His face pressed deeper into the curve of my neck as if he were smothering himself and his hips rolled softly against me but now he was groaning, and his fingers were getting a little tighter on my legs. We had been doing this for so long that my hips ached from the position, and I had no idea how he had managed to hold out on me for this amount of time.

"Daryl, please, _cum_ ," I whispered in his ear and he groaned long and low because he couldn't resist when I spoke to him during sex.

I deliberately tightened my inner walls to help him and he growled, the sound so much more feral in the soft, golden room. His hips pumped a little faster and the way that he caught my clit on the third roll made me gasp breathlessly and cum again, my body bowing beneath his and my arms tightening around his neck.

"Shit," he cursed.

He stopped immediately, no longer pumping but grinding his hips in and out of me with gritted teeth and hair so wet with sweat it dripped onto my collar bones. I kept my fingers locked around his neck, my legs hitched high on his hips and my back bowed beneath him. My orgasm was tapering off now, having lasted so long because of Daryl's rolling hips.

"You'll be the death of me," I gasped into his ear.

Daryl's fingers tightened on my hips. "Bes' way to go," he whispered.

Breathless giggling poured between my lips as he slid slowly from between my thighs and I unlocked my ankles from his back to allow it. I assumed that he would lie beside me after that, pull me into his big body and curl himself around me. He did that sometimes. Didn't cum and instead left me to sleep. Then he would wake me at some godforsaken hour in the night with his hands turning me onto my stomach, and his knees parting my thighs. When I had asked him about this the first time he did it, worried only slightly that he couldn't find enough interest in me to cum, he had smirked. I'd punched him for laughing at my insecurities, and we'd wound up play fighting. He'd pinned me only moments after, sliding his cock back into my wet depths seamlessly. He'd been very talkative that night.

_Grinding his hips against mine as he whispered secrets in my ear. "_ _I wanna cum every fuckin_ _'_ _time you do, Dani, s'why I fuck you so much. See goddamn_ _fuckin_ _'_ _stars every time."_

He whispered that he had to bite my throat, or my shoulder or whatever was available because if he didn't then he was waking the whole block up. That every time he saw me marked with his teeth he got hard. Daryl had told me what a goddess I was to him, how perfect I was for him. I'd never cum as hard as I did that night. He was like a coin, that man. Human in the morning and a beast at night, unashamed of his need for me. It turned me on beyond rationality and sanity, that I could affect him like that. This quiet, otherworldly human who was all muscle and grace in everything he did. Hunting, and killing; protecting the people he loved.

Then an animal when he got me alone. Rough hands, and tight holds. Hard bites and savagery when he fucked his cock into me. But he didn't lie down beside me now like I had expected him to. His rough hands grasped my waist and turned me onto my stomach instead. I smiled as I pulled a pillow to my chest, hugging it to me. He would fuck me hard like this I knew, he always did. Except when he pulled my ass into the air and pushed his cock into me, it was still soft. When he rolled his hips and took a hold of mine, it was slow. A golden haze fell over me, where I wasn't entirely sure of my consciousness. Daryl fucked me into other dimensions, and times. Into places that I didn't even think existed. I didn't cum again, but it didn't matter. It wasn't about the ending, it was all about the bliss of the middle, the heat of the beginning.

It was beautiful.

"I love you," I whispered into the pillow.

I didn't anticipate a response, and I didn't get one. I wasn't even sure if Daryl had heard me. This room was ethereal, and words didn't belong here, only sound. The sound of our flesh meeting, and Daryl's cock sliding into my wetness. The sound of our skin pressing together and releasing despite sweat trying to mould us into one. If he did hear me, I didn't expect him to say it back. It was the first time I had ever said it aloud, but Daryl may have thought I was only saying it in passion, as some people tended to do. I hoped he knew me better than that if he had heard me.

I hoped that he believed in my feelings more than that, and didn't just dismiss them to be words of sex. He didn't make any indication that he did hear though, or that he would respond but he did sit up from where he had been hunched over my body. His fingers cupped my shoulders before they moved down my spine, as slow and soft as he could manage. The callouses on them made me shiver almost violently and I rolled my hips with a soft moan. Daryl's throat hummed, which I knew was a silent laugh.

It made my smile where my face was curled into the pillow, my eyes closed and as heavy as bricks. I loved that through all our roughness we found the moments to laugh and play. We'd done it plenty of times before tonight, it wasn't just because this was the first time he had fucked me softly.

"Gonna cum," he whispered. "Need to see ya."

He pulled out again and turned me onto my back once more. I lifted my legs and hooked them back over his hips, fighting to keep my eyes open for him. Something about my eyes turned him on immensely, and I used it to my advantage often. True to form, Daryl's hips become more frantic, a little more like what I was used to as our gazes locked. I wrapped my whole body around him, squeezing and rippling where he was buried inside me. His mouth opened around my shoulder and his teeth sank into my flesh, his hips frantic and his grip tight. Fireworks ignited under my skin and I tossed my head with a desperate moan.

"Shit," he groaned through his teeth.

I unwound my body as he fought to pull out, and then he was cumming, right against my clit. I moaned softly because it was still the most erotic sight I had ever seen: him cumming. His cum was hot and wet against me, and it felt so good my eyes rolled a little. But then Daryl popped that bubble by grabbing a handful of the blanket and roughly pressing it between my legs.

"Fuck," he muttered to himself as he aggressively wiped me clean.

I made a noise in my throat, my legs trying to shut on his hand and my eyes drooping. I hadn't slept in more hours than I could mentally calculate.

"Daryl, stop," I whispered tiredly, my lungs heaving for air. "I'm gonna pass out." I was tired enough that my words were blending together.

"Dani, I _cum_ in you." He sounded frantic.

"You pulled out," I whispered with a soft frown because I knew I felt it against my clit.

It had felt _so_ good.

"A _fta_ I was cummin'. It fuckin' dripped as I cum on you," he muttered, still harshly wiping between my legs.

A small spike of fear poked at me, but I was so tired and worn out by him that I couldn't hold on to it. "I bet it's fine. It wasn't a lot."

Logically I knew that it didn't take a lot, and I should have been panicking as much as Daryl. But I also knew, logically, that my diet been pretty non-existent since the walkers came, dehydration has occurred a few times, and my periods had been hit and miss. My body wasn't exactly in tip-top shape, even after being at the prison for just over three months. It was doubtful that I could even conceive. Not yet anyway, or if I ever wanted to. I explained that to Daryl as much as I could through drooping eyes and half consciousness, and it seemed to settle him because he stopped trying to clean me and instead lay down and spooned me.

Moments before I had been near unconscious, but now my brain was humming. Could I be pregnant? How would I feel if I ever did get pregnant? I didn't know. Fantasy was very different to reality, and there no use speculating when I had never experienced it before. Daryl fell asleep fairly quickly, his mouth pressed to my throat and his thick arm wrapped securely around my waist. I stayed awake. Not really lively or ready to jump into action, and my body was loose, relaxed still, but my brain drifted between defragmented thoughts and pictures.

My swollen stomach, and then a baby boy, and its evolution. Newborn, on my chest and screeching, having just been born. A soft brow and sharp pucker to his mouth, taken from Daryl. Then a one-year-old, saying his first couple of words and learning to walk around the prison. A two-year-old, getting more talkative and mischievous. Then my mind skipped right over to a seven-year-old, with Daryl's hair and my eyes. Kneeled beside his dad as Daryl taught him to shoot the crossbow, and Daryl's proud smile when he did it.

Then a teenager, almost the spit of what I imagined a younger Daryl to look like. Sharp mouth and world-weary eyes. His dad's accent, because I imagined mine was going to be fairly similar in enough years. Sturdy boots and his own crossbow, his own bike as he stood beside his dad, a united front, taking out walkers. The thought of walkers made me recoil internally, twisting onto my side and burying my face in Daryl's chest. Fantasies were made for a reason: to indulge in the unrealism of your mind, and to be enjoyed without harsh reality. So I tried again, going back to a newborn baby girl wrapped in an old pink blanket of Judith's.

Every image was fuzzy as my mind slipped further into sleep, as my limbs grew heavy in Daryl's loose arms. I thought of that little girl as a one-year-old, then two as I had done with the boy. But I pictured her more, better than I had pictured the boy because my mind conjured up images of Fae when she was little. Piggy tails in her hair at three and four. Long waves of honey blonde, as my hair had been before I got older, and it was plausible, because she would be my daughter after all. But she was also Daryl's, and he had said when his hair was shorter it was lighter. So maybe that would happen to our little girl.

Maybe her roots would be as dark as mine, then maybe her ends would become as light as her dad's, and as I thought it, I saw it. A seven-year-old, maybe eight, playing in fields of corn that didn't exist anymore, on a hot summers day. Looking over her shoulder at me with a dazzling smile, and with Daryl's blue, blue eyes. I could see them clearly in the blinding sun. I could see the way they lit up as Daryl's arms wrapped around her, and I could hear her shrieking as he took her into the air, spinning her in the sunlight.

From the corner of my eye, I could see the sharp lines of my own hair, cut now to my exposed shoulders, suggesting my age. I could feel the grin stretching my face. I could feel my happiness. Except it wasn't happiness anymore, not quite and my grin was struggling, fading. It wasn't Daryl holding my little girl anymore. It wasn't shrieks of laughter peeling out of her mouth, and when I looked up again it was Fae. It was always Fae, held between the rotten hands of three walkers and _screaming_ as they bit her. As they took chunks from her face, and her mouth, tearing her soft pink lips.

It never happened in reality, what happened next but the walkers suddenly left and Fae sat up. She sat up with barely any face left, barely any skin and started laughing. I was only now coming to the realisation that I was screaming. That I had been screaming the minute I lost my little girl and lost Fae again, too. She was laughing, and between the laughter, and her ragged face and the blood, she was saying something: "not over my dead body."

I screamed myself awake. Daryl was already awake, perhaps woken by my screams, as he had been numerous times before. He cuddled me and shushed me, and he didn't ask me to explain. We'd done this plenty of times already. He murmured nonsense to me until I drifted off to sleep again, and this time all thoughts of pregnancies and babies were gone.


	14. Positive

All thoughts of pregnancies and babies had indeed been gone, when I had fallen asleep the second time around the night Daryl had cum in me. Until a week later, when I was throwing up at the fence.

"You okay?" Carl asked next to me, his pole still taking out walkers.

I nodded despite spit hanging from my lips, a puddle of vomit on the ground at my feet, and my stomach threatening to do it all again. "Fine."

"Yeah, you look it," he answered sarcastically, coming to rub my back where I was hunched over my knees. He went quiet for a moment before whispering carefully, "you ain't bin bit, right?"

I laughed weakly. If only it was that simple. "No, Carl. I haven't been bit. They just fucking stink."

And the minute I said it my stomach was rolling again, the walkers rot invading my nostrils. More vomit splattered against the ground, and bless Carl but he didn't run away, just kept rubbing my back in soothing circles.

"Sorry," I gasped after it was all out. "This is gross as shit."

Carl laughed as I straightened up, his hand falling from my lower back. "Had to do it all the time, when my mom was pregnant."

I turned my face from him to pick up the pole I had dropped because I didn't want him to see the panic that slid over my features. "Who's going on the runs this week?" I asked instead.

"Erm, me and my Dad. Daryl and Glenn. Tyrese, and Karen, maybe?" He answered, arranging himself back at the fence.

"Okay. Do you think you could keep going here until I get back?"

Carl nodded and I hurried off into the prison. I found Glenn in the hallway leading out of the library so I took his arm and dragged him back. "I need your help," I whispered by way of explanation at his puzzled expression.

Then I told him.

He baulked immediately. "Dani, I don't know…"

"Please Glenn, I've got no one else to ask," I whispered quietly.

Glenn's face turned upwards as if he were cursing any and all Gods that today was the day he went on a run. "Why is it always me?" He asked after a second.

"Huh?" I frowned.

Who else had asked him to get a pregnancy test? One of the new people? Maggie? Lori, maybe? He shook his head at my confusion, not elaborating.

"You can't let him see," I said as I crowded closer to him, tucked away in a hidden pocket of the library. "I _will_ tell him when I know for sure."

Glenn sighed and tugged on the rim of his baseball cap. "Couldn't you have asked Maggie? You and her are tight now, right?"

I nodded, and internally my heart warmed. Me and Maggie were tight now. As well as the rest of the group, but Maggie had become something of a best friend.

Especially after Beth.

"She's not going on a run for a couple of days. It's rotating between you, Rick, Carl and Daryl. Tyrese, and Karen too, I think. But I can't ask any of them, and I need to know _now_ ," I whispered pleadingly.

"Okay, okay." Glenn relented.

I hugged him quickly, squeezing him tight. "Thank you, Glenn." When he huffed, I squeezed tighter. "Really, I mean it."

"Just as a warning," Glenn began as I released him. "I'm no good at keeping secrets."

I nodded, knowing this already. "Just don't let Daryl find out, please. That's all I care about."

"I'll try, but we see everything the other is putting in their packs, I might not be able to pull it off, Dani," he warned me, hitching his bag up his shoulder.

"Just try, that's all I'm asking."

Glenn nodded and then sighed, scooping me up into a one-armed hug. He did this to me often. I never thought much of it until I realised that he didn't do it to anyone else, bar Maggie. When I later asked Maggie about it, expecting a hint of jealously from her, she had smiled very softly and told me that Glenn had once admitted why: that I looked like his little sister. I must have looked confused because she laughed out loud. _"_ _She wasn't Korean," she had said. "She was adopted."_

After that, I told Daryl what Maggie had said because he seemed to give Glenn the stink eye whenever he gave me his hugs. Then no one spoke about it. I never brought it up with Glenn, never asked him for things because my face would make him more lenient to do it. But guilt curled hot in my gut as he hugged me because I had banked on it today. We parted ways after that, and I made my way back down to the fence. I managed not to be sick again as me and Carl kept putting walkers down. Twenty minutes later, we were waving Glenn, Daryl and Rick off, and my stomach was in knots.

We didn't have to do much more than an hour because of our new traps and reinforcements, so we soon departed. Carl went to go and play with the dog, and I went to potter around doing whatever needed to be done, but I was out of sorts all day. A lot of people picked up on it, especially Maggie, but I kept my mouth relatively shut and said I was tired. That wasn't all that far-fetched to believe thanks to my pale, sweaty skin, and my constant throwing up. _Morning_ sickness, my ass. It was a possibility that I really was just ill because the sick was constant; maybe because I was worrying myself.

I knew I could ask Chris or Lucas -our new doctors- but I didn't want to. I already felt awful telling Glenn first, and not Daryl. He should have been the first person I told, even if it wasn't confirmed yet. But I couldn't face him. I knew without having to ask that he didn't want a baby. I didn't even know if _I_ wanted a baby. Especially after that nightmare, last week. It wasn't impossible to have one, Judith was proof of that, and we had so many kids here now, plus the nursery; the infirmary. Scavenging wouldn't be too much of a problem either if it was a girl because there were more baby girls around than baby boys.

Although if it was a boy, we would have to go looking for some stuff. It was just the really important things that we would have to worry about. Like vitamins and baby formula if I couldn't breastfeed, and anything that the doctors would need for the birth. The infirmary was much better now, especially after that hospital run last week, but we didn't have much for pregnancies. There were a lot of kids, but Judith was the only real baby, and even she was nearly done with formula. Definitely would be by the time I gave birth. I'd never had a baby before, never even been pregnant. I didn't know what would or could go wrong.

Some women just couldn't carry, or couldn't give birth naturally, like Lori. What if I needed a C-Section that went wrong? Lori had died for Judith, but as selfish as it sounded, I didn't know if I was willing to die for a baby I wasn't sure I wanted. Maybe I would feel differently if I kept it. If there even was _it_ to speak of. A baby. A boy, or a girl. Would it look like me, or Daryl? Would it look like I had envisioned in those fragmented dreams? Should I have been thinking that far ahead? Would I keep it? Would Daryl want to? I knew about his childhood now, knew about his deep-seated fears about the kind of man he was; the kind of man he could be.

I absolutely knew he would never hurt a child, especially how his dad had hurt him. But he wasn't too sure, especially after the conversation we'd had a few weeks ago. We were cuddling after he had fucked me into the mattress. It was a very, very rare day. We hadn't had to do anything. Wasn't scheduled for runs, or watches, babysitting, hunting, washing, cooking or anything. That _never_ happened. It was just as the prison was getting a bit more full, and we were gaining trust in the new people. Rick had announced that he wanted the main group to get a break, after so many months of us doing it alone, and all the new people had agreed.

So we got a break, and Daryl used it well. Fucked me all morning, from sunrise until high noon. We laughed, and played, fought and tickled each other breathlessly. He briefly left to get food, and then we had even more sex. It was after our final round, where we were trying to find our sanity, that he had stroked his fingers over the bruises littering my body. I'd smirked at the clear arousal painting his face, at his cock raising beneath the blankets. I'd teased him about how much he liked marking me, because it was a time before he was confident enough to whisper how hard he got over it in my ear.

Daryl had recoiled, took his hands from me and tensed up. I'd been breathless for a moment. We had been so close lately, so far away from the awkward couple that we had started out as. He rarely got upset about anything to do with his body anymore. Not even his scars, but my comment had upset him. We'd argued pretty heavy then, where he deflected and threw insults to avoid the true reason behind his sudden anger. Until he admitted that I was right. That he liked marking me, and it turned him on, and what kind of sicko did that make him, when he had been marked by beatings all his young life, and I was nearly half his age?

I hadn't really known what to say. I didn't know why he liked it either, and I couldn't say it was unrelated to his abuse as a child. All I could comfort him with was the fact that he didn't like hurting me, just liked to see his mark on me, and to know I was his. I'd tried to be soothing as I explained that he hadn't been allowed anything as a child, and he was possessive. Daryl hadn't seemed convinced, but the more I assured him that he didn't hurt me, that I enjoyed him being rough and marking me, the more he settled. We spent the rest of the day hunting, more so him actually hunting and me keeping look out.

But he did surprise me later that day, and I knew it was his version of an apology. He took me to the creek. It felt emotional being there. I died and was reborn when I lost my mom, and again when I lost Fae. I didn't think I could die again, didn't think I could be anyone else. But I did, and I was. I had been reborn once more, that day in the creek where I met Daryl. I was somebody entirely new now, the Dani who lived in the prison. I was someone better. We had been wordless, in the creek and silent as we left too. Words weren't needed. After that, I didn't think much of Daryl's fears of becoming his father, was just faintly aware of them.

Until now, when I was contemplating his certainty that he would never be the dad that his own dad had been to him, and his certainty was important. His decision to have this baby, if there was a baby, was as important as mine. I really wanted to talk to someone, mostly I wanted to talk to Daryl, but he wasn't here and I couldn't face him if he was. I couldn't even go to Maggie because the thought of saying it out loud made me feel pig sick, meaning I probably would actually be sick again. I wondered if I was being dramatic, overthinking it. The prison was so good now. A well-oiled machine.

But would it stay like that? Would it always be like this? Would the rest of the world leave us alone? But I knew deep down that I would have panicked about being pregnant even before the walkers. Granted I was only twenty-one then and wasn't thinking about babies, but I still would have been shit scared. So now, I was fucking terrified. We were safer in here than on the road, but a baby was just so vulnerable, and if I ever lost it like I lost Fae… My own flesh and blood, the baby that I carried and kept safe in this dangerous world…

I would just keel over and die.

Finally, finally, the guys pulled in through the prison gates. I didn't go down to meet them because I didn't want Daryl to follow me in. I waited for Glenn in the library instead, where he said he would meet me after if he could even find any tests. I had to wait nearly twenty minutes before he snuck in.

"Did you find any?" I asked quickly, standing from a table I had been leaning against.

Glenn nodded, opening his pack and pulling out a bag filled with three tests. "Didn't know how many you would want," he whispered sheepishly.

I took them from him and then squished them between us as I hugged him tightly, my eyes burning. "Thank you so much, Glenn."

He squeezed me back before he let go. "He didn't see, and I didn't tell him. But _you_ have to. Soon. The minute you find out."

"I know, and I will. I promise."

We snuck out of the library after that and Glenn went one way while I ducked off to the toilets. I tried not to think about anything I was doing as I took the first test. Didn't think when it came up positive. Didn't think when I took the second one, waited and it came up positive again. Didn't even panic, until I forced myself to pee once more and took the very last one, then that damn plus sign popped up.

Positive.

I went a little numb after that. All my earlier thoughts swooping back in to pull and tug at my brain, fighting to be listened to. So preoccupied was I that I must not have heard the footsteps. But Daryl didn't walk heavy anyway. My eyes swept up the minute he appeared over me, where I was sat on the floor, the three tests laid out between my legs.

His eyes glanced at them, his cheeks drained of colour and he glanced back at me. "They…?"

He stopped before he could say it, like he couldn't get the word out. So, I said it for him. "Positive. I'm pregnant, Daryl."

"Pregnant?"

"Yeah. They're all positive."

"All of 'em? All three?"

I tried not to be exasperated. "Yes, Daryl. _All three_. I'm pregnant. They're all positive."

"Positive… the fuck?" He finally whispered, and it was like he was saying it to himself.

I knew how he felt.

_The fuck?_

I scooped up the three tests from between my legs and stood up. I felt shaky, and still a little sick. Daryl didn't speak or move, so I just handed the tests over. He took a hold of them without really paying attention, still staring at me and held on tight. Tight enough that his knuckles turned white with the effort, and I feared that they were going to break apart in his fingers.

I swallowed. "Do you want to keep the baby?"

His jaw moved, but no sound came out of his mouth. Silence persisted for a tense minute where my heart thrummed until he finally spoke. "S'it mine?"

All the air was expelled from my lungs in a burst, and I reeled back like he had delivered me a physical blow, completely breathless. "What the _fuck_?"

His cheeks flooded red. "Didn't mean that."

"Yeah? Well, go fuck yourself, you piece of shit."

I shoved past him, and he let me go.


	15. This moment

Daryl didn't chase me out of the bathroom, or even catch up with me on my way out of the prison. I knew he could if he tried. If he really wanted to. But he clearly didn't, and he let me leave. So be it. I stamped my feet as I walked with these thoughts, all the way through the halls and out into the balmy night, my actions almost violent, but I didn't truly feel violent. Just sad. What had I expected? For Daryl to sweep me up into his arms and crow with delight? For him to fall to his knees and cradle my hips? No, I hadn't expected that. Daryl wasn't that kind of man. But I had thought of it, briefly, almost vaguely. Hoped?

A soft breeze picked up around me, lifting my hair and scattering my wild thoughts for just a brief moment. It wasn't yet warm, but it was getting there again. Winter had not long faded, and it was all I could use in terms of a calendar now. Daryl could probably work it out if he really tried. He knew how to mark the sun, and follow the moon. I suspected he learnt it just because he enjoyed it, though he said it was useful for hunting. I didn't know things like that. Constellations and which way to walk if you were lost in the woods.

I didn't know how to tell time without a clock, or a day without a calendar, so I didn't know what month it was, or what one we had just come out of. But I was quite sure that this baby would be born just on the tail end of Autumn, perhaps the beginning of another winter. This baby. Was that my decision then, already? Was I deciding to keep this baby, Daryl's decision be damned? No, that wasn't true, but how could he _ask_ me that? What did he think of me? Did he think I had been fucking other guys? _Who?_ Did he really think that there was a chance that the baby wasn't his?

Just because the only other pregnancy around here had been Lori's, and she hadn't known who the father had been, didn't mean that I was her, or even anything like her.

_What the fuck?_

I couldn't wrap my brain around it, and now that I had circled back to it, I couldn't hold in the hurt pouring out of me. I stumbled down to the pig pen, which probably wasn't the best place to be because they stunk and I'd be sick again, but I didn't care. My eyes were blurring all the way down there, and the tears finally tipped over as I slid against a post to sit. I don't know how long I stayed out there. The darkness got more oppressive until there was barely any moonlight for me to see by, and I knew someone was on overnight watch by then, so I hoped whoever it was up in the towers didn't think I was an outside enemy and decided to shoot me on sight.

Killing me, and the baby. _The baby._ I curled my knees up into my chest, as if tucking my stomach away would keep him, or her safe. Ridiculous. I could barely keep myself safe in this world, and I held on with my fingernails to keep the people I loved safe. I never really did a good job of it before, with my mom and Fae. I was doing okay now, but that wasn't the point. How could I possibly keep a baby safe inside me? How had Lori done it? How the hell could you be pregnant in the middle of all this? All the running we did… how could I do it with a huge bump? Well, that thought was inconsequential really.

I didn't imagine many people would allow me to go on runs whilst pregnant. Even still, things could go wrong here, at the prison too. Heaven forbid but any day someone could roll in here and gun us all down. Walkers could still take down the fences if the pile up was too big and we couldn't control it. Sickness could get us. We were doing so much better, but nothing compared to what we used to have, before. Cancer was a no go. Someone got cancer around here, and we had nothing. True that there wasn't much to attract cancer nowadays but even before non-smokers got it. Those really good people who ran every morning, drank water, and didn't smoke, wore sun cream on holiday.

Cancer still came for those people. It could still come now. Any number of illnesses could come now. So much infection in this world, so much rot and decay… throughout history, diseases had just sprouted to life with a mix of different bacterias. Who was to say that wouldn't be the end of us? Not the walkers, or life on the road, or a human taking what you had, just sickness. I almost laughed. Wouldn't that just be so fucking funny? So fucking ironic. A sound startled me, and I tipped my face upwards, the cool air touching down on my damp cheeks. I had expected it to be Daryl, and I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. It didn't matter anyway because it wasn't Daryl.

It was Michonne.

"Hey," I whispered throatily, swiping at my face.

"Hi," she replied, sitting beside me in the dirt without further comment.

There was silence, and I tried to think of an excuse for my tears as they kept watering in my eyes, but she beat me to it. "I know."

My head turned sharply like I was going to give energy to the conversation, but I didn't have any so all I managed to do was blink. "What?"

"I know that you're pregnant, Danielle."

I couldn't make an expression to save my life. "How?"

Michonne smiled, very soft and very secret. "You've been wearing the same panic on your face all day long. Similar to when I found out."

I scoffed, my muscles cracking along my face to form a scowl. "That obvious?"

"Not to women who haven' had children. Me and Carol picked up on it," she said quietly.

I turned my face away and looked up at the moon. Her and Carol. I'd die for the both of them, and yet I hadn't known Michonne had children, before. Lost them. Michonne seemed too wild, too adapted to the world now. I couldn't even imagine her with a child of any kind, let alone swollen with pregnancy.

"I'm sorry," I said immediately because she was the embodiment of everything I didn't want to be.

A childless mother.

Michonne dealt less bullshit than even I did, so I didn't expect her to be any different now. "Every day it's like someone is cutting me open when I see that my boy's gone."

I nodded, my throat tight and my hands drifting to my still flat stomach. No bump to be found, but knowledge beneath my fingertips. "I don't want that."

"Neither did I, and neither did Carol but we have it now. Can't really tell you if it's worth it. But I don't think I would take it back, so it must be."

My eyes sought out Michonne's in the night, her face so obscured by the darkness that I simply felt as if I was conversing with a wise, old spirit entirely made up of pupil and iris. "He doesn't want it. Doesn't even think it's _his_."

It was there again. That agony. How _could_ he? Michonne's mouth was lightened only enough for me to see the bitter smirk that twisted itself there. "He's scared, and he's Daryl. He says stupid things when he's scared."

"I'm scared too," I muttered aggressively, even though it wasn't Michonne's fault and wasn't at all directed towards her. "I'm really fucking scared."

"But not about yourself. Just the baby. He's scared, not just for you. Not just for the baby. But for the both of you. About getting through a pregnancy, in the middle of all of this," she replied.

I turned my face away again. "He's scared of himself too."

Michonne hummed, the sound almost soft in the night. She didn't ask what I meant. We stayed in comfortable silence for a very long time after that. So long that I almost dozed. Michonne didn't go. Just stayed sat, providing me with silent comfort. My mouth formed a smile, hidden by the darkness. The people you found now, you may have walked past in the street before. That was true for most of them in the group, but not me. I wouldn't have ever been here, wouldn't have even bumped into them buying milk. I would have enjoyed my holiday, took a bunch of pictures, got sunburnt and went home, back to England.

I wouldn't have been sitting here now, pregnant by a man I loved so deeply it was almost insane. So where would I be, if none of this had happened? Still living with my mom? I had been twenty-one then and more than ready to move out, but I hadn't made any concrete plans. The truth was I got on with my mom and Fae. Me and Fae didn't even have those 'moments' that I hear other siblings do, especially sisters. I loved her from the very day that she was born. This tiny pink baby wrapped in blankets who at the time I believed to be my own little doll to dress and play with.

My mom had taught me to hold her properly and make her bottles, how to change her nappy and feed her; wind her. I took Fae everywhere that I could all my life as if she were my little girl. Every bit of pocket money I shared, and I took her out to places too. The zoo, or the cinema or a picnic in the park. When I got a job at eighteen those trips became more frequent. I didn't spend a lot of money living at home and so my savings account had been healthy. Enough for me to spontaneously take Fae shopping, or treat us to a takeaway. It was even me who had suggested the holiday, who had paid for most of it as a treat.

Maybe that was why it had hurt so much when I lost them. Because we had almost been too perfect together. We worked well as a team, me, mom and Fae. Sure we saw my dad all the time and he spent a lot of time with us, but it was mostly us girls together. Cooking dinner and play fighting, watching films on a rainy Sunday and eating all the crap in the cupboards. We had worked so well together, had been a trinity of power, and when I lost them there was no guilt. No 'I wish I hadn't shouted at Fae for wearing my makeup' or, 'I wish me and mom hadn't argued that time I went out.' There was none of that, and so when they were gone there was no guilt to dwell over, apart from my own failure to save them. There was just the endless pain, and agony and grief. Where would I have been now, if the walkers never came?

Happy.

Michonne moved next to me and I jerked in surprise, having lost myself inside my head. I glanced around to see where she was going and found Daryl. He was standing over me, hesitating to come near me and shredding his fingers but still there, still willing. He looked anguished, in a way I had never seen before. I was still so angry at him that I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but I couldn't. Michonne didn't speak to Daryl as she stood and walked past him. Didn't even speak to me again, just walked with her head high and graceful, dreadlocks pulled back, into the prison. Her sword gleamed on her back in the moonlight and my mouth twisted ruefully.

I wished I could be like Michonne. Powerful. Otherworldly. Daryl was like that too. Most of the group were, truthfully. I wished I could be more than I was, more like all of them, and sure in the knowledge that I could protect this baby, that I could raise it. My eyes drifted from Michonne's retreating form and locked onto Daryl's where his shadow fell over me.

"Didn't mean it," he finally said.

I simply nodded, because I didn't think I could get words through my tight throat. Daryl waited for a few more seconds before he sat down beside me, settling into the space Michonne had left. We stayed like that for a long while, until my chest loosened and I slumped against his side. Not long after his hand slid down my thigh and his fingers curled around my knee to squeeze.

"Don't know how to do it, " he whispered.

"Neither do I," I whispered back.

This moment felt so fragile.

Like if we spoke too loud we would shatter it to pieces. This was the moment we decided. The moment we passed our judgement on a human life. We did it so often, now. We decided who came back to the prison, and who we offered our help. We decided who should live, and who should die, as if our lives were worth any more than theirs. But this was different. This was a tiny, growing life in my belly that was part me and part Daryl, not a survivor on the road. Not a person too far gone with insanity who needed to be put down because they were a threat. But our baby. This moment was everything.

Everything, and yet nothing we had ever experienced before. Every time I thought about it, thought about that little seed growing inside me, made up of me and Daryl, my chest tightened and excitement slithered through my veins. I was keenly aware of how anxious and terrified I was feeling. But also: happiness. So much happiness. I loved Daryl. The thought of cradling his child in my stomach made my body want to ignite with fireworks. It was scary, and it was such a big commitment that I didn't even have the right word to put across how _big_ it was.

It was more than marriage and a mortgage, and a living together would have been, before. We were agreeing to something bigger than us, right here and now, in this moment. We were agreeing to create life; to continue to let it grow. We were agreeing to protect this innocent little creature with our last dying breath, with every ounce of strength in our bodies, and we were agreeing to protect each other, to raise it. We were agreeing to protect me, so that the baby had a chance to enter this world, no matter how bleak and scary it was.

I was deciding to be a mother and a protector. I was making a promise. The most important one I had ever made, or would ever make again. The one I could never, ever break. Not like Fae, and my mom. But this wasn't just about me, because Daryl was making one too. That he could be better than his dad taught him to be. That he could be more than Merle allowed him to think, that Daryl himself thought that he was. He was promising to be a somebody, to mean something to someone. To two people: me and the baby. Mean something really, truly important. He always thought he was a nobody. A waste of oxygen, and space and skin.

A dirty redneck, a piece of trash asshole whose daddy always made sure he knew it and beat into him that his place in this world was right at the bottom, in the filthy underbelly. This was everything. This moment. This decision. This promise. It wasn't just the baby either. This moment decided the outcome of mine and Daryl's fate; our relationship. If we kept the baby, then we were committing. To each other, to being together, and to raising a child. If we didn't… I wasn't sure. His decision was so important. As important as mine. I wanted this baby.

I was so scared, and anxious, terrified of fucking up and losing the baby in this miserable world; of not raising it correctly. I didn't want to screw up, and I wanted our child to be an actual child. To let it explore playing with toys before it learned how to kill walkers, how to use a knife or a gun. How to kill. But I was also bursting with love. Already. Just a day of debating, and faintly understanding what was growing inside of me and I _loved_ this baby. This wasn't how I thought I would be a mom. It wasn't where I thought I would be a mom, and it wasn't with someone I imagined I would create a child with.

None of this was ever what I thought it would be, not one thing, but what more could I ask for than the fact that the person who had helped create this baby with me was a loyal man? Daryl didn't say 'I love you', but he showed it. When he kissed me, and when he stroked the scar on my forehead. When he had my back on runs, and when he took a walker out before it could get to me. That man would kill for me, and lay down to die for me in equal measure, no questions asked. What more could I ask for than that? What more could he possibly give? 'I love you' was inconsequential. Meaningless, compared to that.

I loved him, and in every way that truly mattered, he loved me too. We made a baby together, a creature cradled inside me, and we did it with love. That night he took me softly, and slow. When he kissed me breathless and worshipped my body in a way I had never experienced in my lifetime. We made a baby, and I wanted to keep it, but Daryl's decision was as important as mine. So this moment, this decision was absolutely everything. Because if he didn't want it, then I knew I wouldn't have it. I couldn't, and I wouldn't do that to him. He deserved more than that.

It wasn't like he could just pay child support, and leave me to raise it, or even simply run off. This would mean he would be around his child. This prison meant he would see the baby grow every day. Maybe as he watched a bump shape along my body he would even decide to want him, or her. But I couldn't force that on him so this moment decided if me and Daryl would stay together, too. Daryl's hand slipped from my knee as I unfurled my legs from my chest. My head was vibrating with all the thinking, all the questions that couldn't be answered banging around.

For a moment his hand just rested on my thigh, and then hesitantly, and so very carefully, it moved up. Up my thigh until it curved over my hip. Hesitated. Then it slid beneath my t-shirt, and his warm fingers pressed soft and slow to my stomach. I took a deep breath and leaned some more into his side, stretching out so that my belly was expanded for him to feel. There wasn't anything there yet, no bump or movement. But it felt powerful, it felt like something instrumental for him to be touching that space. That hidden space where our baby was growing. _Our_ baby. I bit my lip to stop any noises and blinked to clear the moisture pooling in my eyes.

He needed to do this. He needed to make his decision. We both needed to know so that we could take the next steps into that shaky, uncertain future.

"Fuck, Dani. M'so fuckin' old, and you got my goddamn _child_ in you."

My chin wobbled and I bit my lip. "I want to keep it, Daryl. I want _our_ baby."

Daryl's head bobbed, his throat working repeatedly. "Don't know how," he repeated again, his finger still pressed to the soft skin of my belly. "But… I wanna try."


	16. Love

I would like to say that my pregnancy was beautiful, easy. It wasn't. It was frightening, and difficult. As a person, and a couple it changed me, and Daryl. Some ways good, some bad. Sometimes we argued and cussed and screamed, debated if we were doing the right thing, or if this was such a good idea. Other times we cuddled each other, spoke to the baby and laughed. Most of the time it really was good: lying in bed with Daryl's head on the bump, his rough fingers gentle as he trailed the stretch marks appearing over my stomach. But sometimes, sometimes it was just horrible. I was fat, useless and emotional.

I couldn't go on runs, and Daryl didn't really want me on watches, in case something did happen and I was too slow to get the others. Clearing the fence was a no-go. My sense of smell had ramped up and I could barely even be in the general vicinity of a walker, much less kill one without throwing up everywhere. I wanted my mom a lot, wanted some guidance and support. Daryl offered it, but he had never had to be pregnant, and it wasn't the same. I found support in my girls. Carol, Maggie, Michonne, Tara, Beth, Rosita and Sasha.

Only Michonne and Carol could truly help me when it came to questions or tips about pregnancy, but I loved the others all the same for trying. Especially when six months in I started to get sad every time I looked out at walkers, started having a lot of panic attacks; a lot of nightmares. A combination of losing Daryl, and Fae, the baby. Sometimes they were amazing: dreams of my mom holding a bundle and cooing, a brilliant smile lighting her face. Sometimes Fae: older, living, breathing. But mostly it was just losing the people I cared about, night after night, and it was exhausting. Being in the middle of an apocalypse -predictably- didn't improve matters.

We lost people. We lost one of the doctors: Lucas, and we lost Daisy, the female scientist, and Jenny: the model. We lost Tyrese. A handful of other people who I hadn't become very close with, but who were still a loss. It changed the feel of the prison, the mood of its occupants. It changed Daryl; it changed me. The worry for the baby, the worry that I was a horrible, selfish mother for bringing him or her into this world, just for my own pleasure of carrying them; of being allowed to fall in love again. God, did I fall in love again. I had never known anything like it.

The love I felt for my mom and dad was different to the love I felt for Fae, and then the love I felt for Daryl. I didn't think it could get deeper than that. The need to protect, and serve and please. The need to make him smile, make him happy. The appreciation of every emotion, every story from his difficult past, or every mention of his brother's name. The need. The raw, mouth-watering lust I got in the pit of my belly, spiralling down between my legs, every time he looked at me. This was a completely different ballpark, a whole other category of love that I hadn't yet experienced. Not for Daryl, or Fae, my parents, or any of my other relatives.

This was something magical, endless, infinite. There would never be an end to it, never be a point where I could stop. There could be an end to Daryl. You didn't exactly die of old age anymore. Death was coming, every second of every minute of every damn day. Daryl would leave me soon, or I would leave him first. That's the way it was now. It was quite possible that in the time we had left together, we could fall out of love. We could find someone else. I couldn't see it happening, but it was possible. Not this. Not for this baby. I would never stop loving them, never stop fighting tooth and nail for them, protecting them until my very last breath.

There would be no end. Whilst I had these revelations, Daryl got more possessive; clingy, and usually, I could tolerate it, enjoy it even, but being pregnant changed that. I got angry a lot, especially when it came to sex, and Daryl got hurt. He didn't really want to as I got bigger, said he just couldn't. But I was so goddamn horny it was a fucking joke. I wanted him like I had never wanted him before, and sometimes it was entirely because of the baby we had made together. Of course, I would never force him, and I didn't, so as I got bigger, the sex stopped and we were strained.

It was still so difficult for Daryl to express himself, and when he did -like with the sex issues- and I shot him down for it, he spent a lot of time trying to forgive me. I loved the baby so much, but it came to the point where I couldn't wait for the pregnancy to just be over. Then quite suddenly it was, and here we were. Screeching baby being pulled from between my trembling legs, coating them in blood and gunk, Daryl cutting the cord with tears dripping down his face and slightly averting his eyes so that he didn't find out the sex before me, and noise.

Pressing into my eardrums; making my head pound as I lay on the bed, soaked in sweat. Daryl loomed over me, eyes shining and hands shaking as Chris smiled and weighed the baby. It had been really hit and miss whilst I was pregnant. Eugene had set up the generator but when a group went back to the hospital -me sat anxiously waiting back at the prison- we had lost Tyrese just to get to the doors, and so they had aborted the plan. Daryl had been so angry about it, wanting the machines for my scans, and to know the baby was okay, but Rick had reasoned with him -and me after- that it was just too dangerous.

I knew how they all cared about the baby, about me and Daryl. I knew how much they had been willing to risk to ensure the baby's health, and that had already been too much. If Rick said that they couldn't risk it, then I knew without a doubt that it was impossible. So, we hadn't had much in the way of technology to hear the baby's heartbeat, or see them on screen, or learn the sex, but we had Chris's hands, which could tell us that the baby was alive. Now, with him or her finally here, I knew Chris wanted to do all he could to check their health.

After a few minutes of the baby wailing and Daryl pacing, not going too near, again because he wanted to find out the sex at the same moment as me, Chris finally wrapped the baby in a towel and with a smile, offered the wailing bundle over to Daryl. He glanced down at me as if seeking my permission and I had barely enough energy to smile. He then turned back to Chris and gently took the bundle that consisted of our child, tremors now visible in his arms.

"It's a boy," Chris whispered.

My eyes filled with water and my stomach clenched, searching for the small miracle I had been carrying for so long and feeling a tremble when he wasn't there. "Did you hear that, Daryl?" I croaked, my throat dry and tight.

Daryl nodded, a smile tugging at his mouth as the baby quietened down. "Yeah. His fuckin' beautiful, Dani. You did so good, girl."

For a while, there was more activity, Chris helping me with the placenta and cleaning me up as best as he could until I showered. I thought I would have been more embarrassed with him seeing every part of my body in such gory detail, but I was nothing but thankful for him. My only option had been natural childbirth and I felt weak beyond words could describe.

"There you go," Chris murmured when he was done. "Why don't you join her on the bed, Daryl?"

I smiled reassuringly as Daryl silently asked my permission, relaxing back into the bed with exhausted muscles. "Come down here."

Daryl bent his knees to sit next to me on the small sliver of bed available. "Here," he whispered before he shifted to press the baby into my arms.

I made a noise in my throat, my eyes having begun to droop before they focused on my son's face. _My son_. God. I arranged my arms properly so that I could hold him whilst I pulled the towel away from his face. "Hello, handsome."

Daryl laughed in my ear, his hand stroking through my hair as I spoke, "we did so good."

"Yeah, we did," he agreed quietly as my finger stroked the cheek of our boy.

"What should we call him?" I asked, my eyes flicking up to Daryl's.

"I dunno, thought it was gonna be a girl, didn't we?" Daryl whispered, his voice hushed now that the baby wasn't crying.

"Mmm," I answered without much thought. "He looks like you."

Daryl's upper body, where it was pressed to my side, shuddered, like the thought alone pleased him beyond words, and when I looked up his eyes were filled with tears again. I smiled, my left arm holding our son as I reached up my right hand to stroke Daryl's face. "I love you."

His chest stuttered again, and I laughed. Fucking ridiculous, saying it now when I had just given birth to our boy, but I was floating on a cloud and this day couldn't get any better. "Love you too. Love you both so fuckin' much."

Apparently, it could.

I laughed again, and the laugh developed into happy tears that jolted the baby. He started crying again and Daryl glanced up at Chris, searching for guidance. He came closer from where he had tucked himself against the wall, a smile warm on his face. "He might be hungry. You should start breast feedin' soon as he shows he's ready."

I glanced back at the crying boy in my arms and noticed how his cheek pressed to my chest, his lips open and rounded. I started to push my bra aside without hesitation, the only thing I was dressed in now. My legs were still bare though I had closed them, and Daryl must have shimmied the blanket somewhat up my lap because I could only feel the air on my stomach.

"I'll let the others know," Chris said. Then: "congratulations."

As he turned to leave, Daryl suddenly stood, jostling me a little as I guided the baby to my breast. Chris had asked a couple of weeks back whether I would like him to stay once I began breastfeeding, as babies didn't tend to latch straight away, or it was painful. I had said no then, knowing how exposed I would feel now, and I was glad of it. Michonne had already helped me as much as she could, in theory, having been the only one out of her and Carol to breastfeed, and I just wanted some time alone with Daryl and the baby. As I tried to guide my boy to eat, I glanced up quickly at Daryl as he stopped in front of Chris.

He offered his hand with a smile he rarely gifted to anyone. "Thanks a lot, man. Couldn' have done it without you."

"Thank you, Chris," I added after.

Chris grinned as he shook Daryl's hand. "It's my pleasure. Really, it is. I'm so glad it all went well. Danielle, I'll come and check up on you soon."

Daryl nodded and closed the door behind Chris before he joined me back on the bed. We were silent in the aftermath of Chris's words. Glad didn't cover it. Lucky was the correct word. Lucky that I had survived without any pain medication. Lucky that the baby had survived inside me without any scans or heartbeat check-ups. Lucky that there were no complications, lucky that the baby was perfectly healthy. So, so lucky. I let myself sink into it, how grateful I was that me and my boy had made it through this. It was another couple of minutes before the baby would latch and when he finally did I hissed quietly, baring my teeth a little.

Daryl fluttered one hand over my shoulder and the other to cup the back of the baby's wispy head, worry tightening his mouth. "Y'alright?"

"Yeah," I whispered. "Just stings a bit."

"Wonda' who's eyes he got," Daryl murmured, his fingers skimming over the baby's brow where his eyes were still clenched shut.

I smiled, arranging my shoulders more comfortably. "Probably mine. Got a lot more brown than green, and dark dominates."

Daryl hummed, his head bending until he pressed a kiss to my sweaty forehead. "Hope so."

We stayed in comfortable silence after that where Daryl's fingers stroked me and the baby, and our son suckled away. When he seemed to be full, I arranged him carefully and sat forward to wind him. I winced every time my hand pressed against his delicate frame, half afraid I would hurt him. I knew Daryl felt much the same because his wince kept echoing mine. I was in half a mind to tease him about the size of his hands, and how terrifying it was going to be for him, but I decided against it. Daryl was already petrified, no doubt the joke would mean that he didn't touch his son until he was nearly one.

A shiver caught me quite suddenly at the thought of this beautiful boy being Daryl's son, the son I had carried and birthed. It did strange things to me. The look of rapture on Daryl's face, the warmth in my arms and the love I was feeling made me think of more children. This, all the time. This, I would die for. I leaned back when the baby finally gave a small burp and arranged him over my chest. Daryl lifted the blanket to cover us, just as the door knocked. It swung open soon after and I glanced up to see my girls clamouring around the doorway. I laughed softly, my chest positively radiating with love.

One at a time, my goddamn _ass._

"Hey," Maggie said through a gorgeous grin. "Congratulations," she whispered.

"Come in." I laughed as they all tumbled in. "Where's Sasha?"

"She got watch, said she was gonna murder Rick for making her miss this," Rosita answered.

I laughed as Beth fought past Maggie, her hands clutching fabric as Michonne whirled right past Sasha and shoved against Carol. "Fuckin' hell, slow down," Daryl growled – half serious.

Carol rolled her eyes as she leaned up to hug him. "Congratulations, daddy."

"Thanks," he muttered sullenly but his face was beaming.

"Lemme see!" Beth whisper-yelled.

"Beth, she only jus' put 'im there," Daryl grunted.

"Shut up, you." I gently nudged him as I sat forward, the blanket pooling to my chest. It was just my girls, so I didn't mind. "It's a boy."

"I knew it!" Tara said from the back, worming her way past Rosita. "You owe me the next candy bars you find," she said as she passed her.

Rosita rolled her eyes but turned a dazzling smile on me. "Mama, you're glowing."

"I'm so happy," I admitted, my eyes lifting to Daryl with a smile to match.

"Awww. Can I hold him?" Beth asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, but he's got no clothes."

"Oh, no, I brough' 'em." She grinned, showing me the fabric in her hands. "Got white 'cause I didn't know."

"I got nappies," Michonne said quietly.

I glanced up at her in surprise. She had appeared silently beside my head. She looked tense around the edges. Happy on the surface though. I understood. She had lost this, and she was happy for me but it was hard to look at. If I hadn't been cracking open with all the love inside of me I may have felt guilty for having to put her through this.

"Thanks, you guys," I whispered as Daryl edged down to take our son.

"He got a name yet?" Tara asked as she sat at the end of my bed.

Maggie whacked her for sitting on my feet before she joined her. I rolled my eyes at the pair of them and shuffled further up the bed so that Beth could sit by my thighs and start to dress the baby. I stared at him for a moment, and at the smile lighting up Beth's scarred face, at Rosita as she held the stuff not being used for Beth, and tried to conjure up a name.

Turning my head to Daryl, I shrugged. "We haven't decided yet, have we?"

Daryl shook his head and pushed me further over to squeeze on. Carol barely managed to lean against the edge of the bed, her back pressed to Maggie's. Michonne remained by my head, quiet and watchful.

God, I loved them all.

"Anyone got any ideas?" I asked the room at large.

"He don't really look like-a anything right now," Beth commented.

I laughed and then general conversation started up. I smiled and replied where needed, and then Beth was done dressing the baby. Washed, and dressed in plain white made him look even more beautiful and as he was passed to Maggie I felt my throat tighten up. Tears quietly slipped from my eyes and for a moment I was overwhelmed. So much love. I had lost so much and there were things I would never know if I had lost or not. There were walkers outside the door and people gone mad with the ravished world, dangerous people, and normality was shattered. But in here, in this prison, I was cocooned with love. Flowing in and out of me, through my veins to pulse in my heart. Michonne's solid palm was reassuring on my shoulder, and whilst everyone cooed over the baby and Daryl half-heartedly snapped at them, I cried and breathed, and let it in.

"Dani, do you think you could walk?" Carol asked softly.

I glanced up whilst wiping my face and nodded, even though I wasn't quite sure. Carol nodded back, allowing another large bout of time for everyone to have a hold of the baby.

Then she suddenly whipped into action and started giving everyone jobs. "Daryl, hold your son. Maggie, Rosita, you go with Dani, get her a hot shower and all she needs. Beth, Tara, you help me clean up in here and Michonne, could you grab that bag for Dani from her's and Daryl's cell?"

Suddenly I was up and out of bed, with the aid of Maggie and Rosita, holding the grimy blanket around my mostly nude body. Daryl was holding our boy, Carol was stripping the bed with Tara, and Beth was hurrying off for fresh sheets after being told twice. Maggie and Rosita got me fresh clothes and helped me in the shower because walking was a goddamn mystery. My legs simultaneously felt like metal and water: too heavy to move and then giving out. Rosita teased me as I complained about needing to pee, and oohed and awed in sympathy through the door when I did, making sounds like I was giving birth again. When I felt a little more human, and Maggie force-fed me, I was back in the room. The bed was fresh, and the room bathed in the glow of candles. In that glow, on the bed was Daryl holding our sleeping son.

My feet like they were going to slide out from underneath me again so I hurried over to sit next to him. He kissed my forehead, his hand not leaving the baby. "Betta'?"

I nodded. "Yeah, these guys are amazing."

After that it was goodbyes and thanks, congratulations, promises to return in the morning, hugs and kisses for the baby, then it was just me and Daryl again. No words, none needed. Me and him sat heads pressed together, cradling our son with smiles. I was exhausted but then the baby started to stir and he was eating again. My breasts did hurt, but Daryl soothed me with praise and his smiles were worth everything. I sighed deeply. Content. Happy. Maybe it wouldn't always be like this. Maybe I wouldn't be around until I was old, and maybe me and Daryl didn't have a lot of time left.

Maybe the walkers would never be gone, and maybe they would by the time our son was older. Maybe was applied to a lot of things, and there were a lot of questions that couldn't be answered. I didn't know what was going to happen in the future, and right in this moment, I didn't care. I was so happy, so radiant. Surrounded by love, and good, strong people. I was a mother. I had made a promise. Every day would be frightening. Every day would be a challenge, but I was willing to take it all on for these people I loved so much. For my son. I was willing to live each day like it was my last because it very well could be. Live each day as they come.

One at a time.


End file.
